


All God's Children

by mindthebutterfly



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Bees, Fluff, Gore, Horror, M/M, Possession, Spiritual, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindthebutterfly/pseuds/mindthebutterfly
Summary: Bajor sends hives of endangered honey bees to Deep Space Nine for Starfleet in hopes of restoring Bajor's ecosystem to what it was before the Occupation. But Kai Winn and a broken Orb cause complications and the bees get loose. Things take a turn for the strange when Julian Bashir develops a much deeper fascination with the bees. And with Garak.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 14
Kudos: 42





	1. Shattered Light

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! Something spooky but still romantic for Halloween! I've been wanting to do fluff, but this is a little stranger, hopefully I can get it all written before Halloween.
> 
> I'm going to try to make a better effort to use the site's line breaks for separating up my chapters instead of using dashes, it looks neater, but its something extra I have to do during posting. Still, it looks nice to me, so I hope you like it. :3

Stars. A billion brilliant lights outside her window, and space station Deep Space Nine, approaching them slowly from the edge of her field of view. But her quarters inside the cargo ship were cold and mostly dark, and the troubled shaking of the cargo ship was bothering her. She rose unsteadily to her feet, and found herself moving in the direction of her precious cargo.

She had travelled alone, despite the impropriety. She wanted nobody else involved in this. This was her project. All hers. No upstart Vedics would follow her and take over. She tilted her head sideways, her eyes focused entirely on the Orb case on its pedestal here in her quarters, if you could call this cramped room quarters. She had paid in latinum for this secret transport, she didn’t want the Vedic assembly or anything else to stop her.

The Orb case was shaking. So was the ship. She shook with it. She touched the case with her hand. Soon now.

Kai Winn was startled when the whole ship suddenly lurched, throwing the Orb case into her arms and sending her sprawling back onto the floor. The loose door of the case swung open and dozens of broken Orb shards fell onto her chest.

A fear suddenly filled her, and her mind screamed in torment for long moments as fire and energy and pain filled her and fought over control of her and she flung the case from off of her in a huff.

Silence. And horror. The shards lay strewn all over the floor and panic suddenly filled her. Tears sprung up in her eyes at the thought of what would happen if the orb was missing a single shard. In her haste she picked up the shards one by one with her own hands and put them into the case again, and the last shard, filled with glowing golden light, emptied itself in a river into her body, its energy overwhelming.

Fire and energy battled within her, and red fire ejected from her hand into the broken shard. The glowing red shard glittered, and it seemed to be grinning at her momentarily, before joining all the others in the case and shutting the door behind itself. The Orb case stood silent, accusatory, aloof, almost as if it had become one with the floor of the ship.

Kai Winn collapsed on the ground in an exhausted quivering heap of frightened tears. It would be hours of shunting and docking procedures later before the cargo pilot would let anyone else know she was on board.

* * *

**_Bleedeep._ **

_Go away,_ he thought, and pulled the covers over his head.

**_Bleedeep._ **

The door chime sounded again, and he huffed, lifting his head in distress.

“Computer, time?”

“The time is zero zero thirty two.”

_Oh my god, it’s after midnight!_

**_Bleedeep._ **

Julian Bashir jumped out of bed, still wrapped in his comforter, untangled the sheets from around his legs, and went to the door and opened it.

The corridor outside his quarters was severely empty. He looked down the length of the hallway balefully. His quarters were at a dead end, so they could only have gone one way. But the amount of time from the last chime to now was not long enough to simply walk away; they had to have run fast to reach the turbolift at the end of the hall. He considered the doorways of other quarters mournfully.

_Pranks at midnight are not likely to happen here, at least not by the people in my section...no children and mostly medical staff._

Julian and his staff were guaranteed rooms in this section due to its closeness to the turbolift route leading most directly to the infirmary on the Promenade. There was a smaller emergency medstation at the nearest intersection as well. And medical staff knew how important it was for them to get all the sleep they could get before a shift. It couldn’t be a prank by them, they would also be getting their all important sleep. He knew they were too serious about their duties to let a childish prank tempt them out of their routines.

Julian stepped back into his quarters and waited.

**_Bleedeep._ **

He immediately opened the door again and stepped outside. Empty. He sighed, and tapped his combadge.

“Doctor Bashir to ops. Are you detecting any other lifesigns besides my own in the corridor outside my quarters?”

A moment passed and the crewman on duty responded.

“No sir, no other life signs in the corridor. Is anything wrong sir?”

“Nothing, I think my door chime is malfunctioning, could you have an engineering team come look at it?”

“Yes sir.”

Julian returned to his quarters and looked around. It wasn’t the best way to be woken up at midnight. He mentally noted the sound of the chimes as one of those he would have to ignore until further notice, along with the hum in the walls that Chief O’Brien insisted was normal but was aggravating as hell on a genetically engineered human’s sensitive ears. Ferengi on the station also complained about it too, but nobody cared. Nobody ever cared.

**_Bleedeep._ **

Suppressing a growl, he stalked over to the replicator in annoyance.

“Tarkalean tea.”

He had long abandoned the comforter, and stepped over it as he wandered over the couch with his tea, which he set on the side table, where the novel he had been reading the previous night was still waiting for him. He could sit and read and sip tea until he felt up to sleeping.

**_Bleedeep._ **

Julian ignored the chime, and focused on his book. It was a Cardassian novel, another recommendation, but this time from Garak’s young friend Ziyal, and he was liking this much more than even Garak probably would have expected him to. It embarrassed him that he did, this was a romance novel. But the characters felt much more alive in this than they did in that sad repetitive epic that Garak still felt was the best piece of literature ever written.

_Best piece of literature, my little genetically engineered..._

“Girani to Doctor Bashir…” his combadge suddenly cut through his cursive thoughts and Doctor Girani’s voice hit his ears. She sounded cross. “Kai Winn is in need of your assistance in the Bajoran Temple.”

**_Bleedeep._ **

“What’s wrong with the Kai?” Julian asked, gritting down his immediate annoyance at the Kai’s unexpected arrival to the station.

“She is complaining of pain in her arm, but she won’t leave the temple to go to the infirmary for a deeper scan. Captain Sisko wants you here for a second opinion.”

“I’m on my way, but she’ll probably get the same answer from me. Bashir out.”

**_Bleedeep._ **

Julian suppressed an uncharacteristic snarl. Losing his temper at midnight would be easy for him, it would be very easy for him to snap. Sisko had decided having Bashir come would be a good idea. He was most certainly, deeply, wrong in Julian’s humble opinion. A second opinion was always permitted, but not always needed, and he calculated that Sisko was just asking for him to be there as a barrier between the Kai and probably his own temper at the woman’s arrival. Especially at nearly one o’clock in the morning.

_If she says even one little thing to get under my skin I swear I’ll…_

**_Bleedeep._ **

It was the last straw. Julian grabbed his teacup, and threw it at the door in anger, and it smashed into a thousand tiny glittering glass bits, sending tea splattering over the carpet. Julian let out an exasperated sigh, hating himself for his moment of weakness, and hit his combadge.

“Bashir to ops. Tell the engineers who come to work to be careful of the broken glass inside the door.”

“Broken glass…?”

“Yes, and give them my apologies, I’m in a bit of a rush and can’t stop to clean it up right now.”

Life was just determined to beat him up this morning, and he was determined not to let it do so. He was dressed and up and out of the quarters just as a sleepy looking Ensign Degan exited the turbolift with his engineering kit, looking very put out. He nodded to the ensign, and took his place on the lift.

It was going to be a long day for all of them.

* * *

“Well, what exactly is wrong with it?”

“Well it hurts,” said Kai Winn, holding up her arm and looking confused. “As I said.”

“I’m not detecting anything that might cause pain,” Doctor Bashir said calmly, and looked up at Sisko. “I think she should come back to the infirmary. It might be a neural anomaly. I’d need to do a brain scan.”

“Not until the Orb is properly seen to,” Kai Winn huffed stubbornly, and Captain Sisko took a deep calming breath.

She had been unwilling to part from the company of her Orb since she had boarded, after the cargo captain had alerted them to the fact that she was still on board. She had not informed anyone that she was coming, and Sisko was not thrilled.

“Why don’t you tell Doctor Bashir what happened, so he can get a good idea of what may have caused your problem.”

“Well, I was standing, contemplating the orb, and the ship began to shake and I fell over. I felt a jolt of pain in my arm and it has been hurting ever since.”

“We detected an energy surge when the ship docked,” Kira said, having sat there dutifully and respectfully silent while Bashir gave the Kai his ‘second opinion’.

“A loose conduit might have shocked her, but I'd have detected electrical damage to her nerves,” Bashir said, and he physically reached out and took her by the arm. “Let me feel your pulse…”

Before Kai Winn could even protest the physical touch, a sudden golden glow of light pulsed from her arm into Bashir’s.

The man jolted back, startled, his eyes wide, and he shook his head, and blinked, and shook his head again, wiping his face with his hand as if smacking at an insect that had flown into his face.

“Doctor!” Sisko caught the man as he fell backwards flailing. He jerked twice, and stopped moving. Girani immediately was at his side scanning.

“He’s unconscious. But he’s not injured. I can revive him,” said Girani.

“Well,” said Kai Winn, shaking her arm, a look of triumph in her eyes. “The pain seems to be gone. Doctor Bashir found the source of my problem.”

Sisko gave her a strong warning look, and Girani pressed a hypospray to Bashir’s neck to revive him.

“Doctor,” Sisko repeated. “Are you alright? What happened?”

The man moaned, and nodded, though he looked unsteady.

“Residual energy,” he said immediately. “I think it may have dissipated. Gave me a right shock didn’t it?”

Girani did another thorough scan, and Bashir consented to go with her to the infirmary for a follow up. But now Kai Winn was looking smugly happy with the outcome, and Sisko held his tongue for a moment, turning to look at her.

“May I ask, Kai Winn, why are you here? Why did you come to the station on a cargo ship, without telling us you were coming?”

“I’m here to ask for your help Emissary, with a very serious problem,” Kai Winn looked up at Kira for a moment, then approached the orb case, which was sitting on a chair, the main orb pedestal on the station already having an Orb occupant.

It was rare that two Orbs were permitted by the Vedics to travel to the same place. The Orbs were meant to be shared by all Bajorans not kept all in one spot. It was opening the Orb case that alerted them to the reason why Kai Winn had brought the second Orb to the station. Kira let out an immediate sound of sorrow. The Orb lay in shatters on the bottom of the case, giving no light.

“This is the Orb of Regret,” said Kai Winn. “It was damaged during the Occupation, and it is with regret I must bring it to you now. The Prophets spoke to me, and told me to bring it to the Emissary. Perhaps with Starfleet’s advanced technology you may find a way to repair it. I was worried that if I told anyone I was coming, I would be stopped. But I must obey the Prophets. I apologize for any worry I might have caused.”

Sisko pondered the Orb fragments in their shattered state. Two Vedics, that had been on the station, were now present, and had started praying at seeing the shattered object.

“Hm,” Sisko sighed. Wherever Kai Winn went, usually trouble followed. But he could find no fault in her motives. If the Orb could be restored it would be a very good thing for Bajor. “I think we should take it to the lab. Major, have an engineering team set up a space for it. I’ll have Dax start work in the morning.”

“Why wait so long?” said the Kai, looking troubled. “Work should begin immediately!”

“A good night’s rest is important to a focused mind,” said Sisko, placatingly. “Dax will be at her best when she’s fully rested. I will let you know any progress she makes. Will you be staying?”

“I shall stay, and study the Orb of Prophecy,” she turned to look at the other, undamaged Orb, still hiding in its own case on its pedestal. “Thank you Captain, for taking your time to help Bajor. May the Prophets be with you.” 

* * *

“...And that is the situation with Kai Winn, and the Orb she brought on board,” said Sisko, and turned to look at Dax. “Dax, I’d like you to take over the Orb project, you’ll find it's already waiting for you in the lab and you can get started right away after this meeting. Guess you lucked out this time huh old man?”

“It is a relief,” she looked down the table of the ward room to the two Bajoran men sitting there, looking noncommittal and concerned. “I’m highly allergic to insects.”

“I can understand why you would want to change assignments, then,” said one of the Bajorans. “I would too.”

Odo watched the interchange with a soft feeling of dismay. He was not pleased with Kai Winn’s decision to arrive at the station in secret, and was feeling his hackles rise at all the security measures that hadn’t been in place before her arrival that he would be having to deal with today. On top of their main problem.

“Which brings us to our next task,” Sisko said, and he seemed to open the floor up to their two guests. “The three beehives now sitting in our cargo bay were brought on board last night on the same ship the Kai was travelling on. These two men are Apiarists, working with the Bajoran Agricultural Ministry to restore Bajor’s ecosystem to the way it was before the Occupation, I’ll let them explain their reasons for being here.”

“Thank you Captain,” the one who had spoken before stood up, and went over to the front of the room to the viewscreen, his companion followed him. “My name is Alnan Tael. And this is Corban Raffa,” the other man nodded. “We’re Apiarists, as the Captain said, and our job is to work with bees.”

“Honey bees, specifically, but any pollinating bees are considered vitally important to Bajor’s agricultural development,” Corban tapped the console on the table, and the view screen showed an image of a honey bee, with its anatomy labelled. “The Bajoran honeybee is currently considered an endangered species. The introduction of Cardassian voles during the Occupation brought with it another invasive species; the Vole Tick,” he changed the screen image to show the tick, and it's ugly multi-spiked anatomy, like a thorny thistle burr. “These little blood drinking invaders have devastated our bees, latching onto the bees and causing anemia and death. They have already sent two of our native pollinating insect species to extinction. We can't lose any more or our planet’s ecosystem will be devastatingly changed forever.”

“The Bajoran government feels it would be prudent to send healthy samples of our pollinator insects to Starfleet for study, to find ways to make them resistant to the ticks,” Alnan seemed to sigh. “Starfleet has told us that genetic engineering would be the last resort, but we’re losing so many pollinators as it is that we’re getting close to taking that step. We have decided to start with studying the most endangered honey bees, and maybe still be able to preserve the bees in captivity if we can’t save them in the wild.”

“Honey production and wax are also very important artisan crafts on Bajor, and part of our traditional heritage,” Corban added. “We are losing an important part of Bajoran independence if we lose our bees. Our farmers keep bees to pollinate their crops. They provide wax for candles, honey for medicine and food, and many species of our bees prey on insects that bother Bajorans. It is a tragedy that the predators have become the prey…” 

“A huge tragedy,” Sisko said. “Thank you for taking your time to explain the problem. And the solution. The _Achilles_ will be arriving in a week to pick up the hives and take them to a Starfleet research station.”

“It's important that they remain in quarantine until then,” said Corban. “We can’t risk these healthy bees becoming infested by vole ticks.”

“We’ve worked very hard for years to make sure this station stays vole free,” said Kira. “But the ticks can travel on other carriers, people and pets, animals, so we’ll have to shut down all transport of animals and make sure all people are clean before coming on board.”

“Transporter buffers can clear out any ticks,” said Doctor Bashir, looking over at O’Brien. “People coming to the station should be brought on board through transporters rather than the access ports until further notice. And docking should be minimized on ships coming from Bajor and places with vole populations. I can have nurses assigned to double checking guests and station personnel at the airlocks.”

“Good call,” said Sisko. “Most important, we should make sure the security around the hives is airtight, nothing can get through the quarantine fields.”

“I’ll get on that right away,” said O’Brien. “We can isolate the cargo bay with shield emitters as well and set up a containment bio-lock that you would have to pass through to access the bees. It would scan each person for ticks before they would be permitted to enter the bay.”

“How long will that take Chief?”

“About ten hours,” O’Brien shrugged, giving his usual overestimate. “Twelve tops.”

“If you can get it done sooner, please do,” said Corban, beating Sisko to the punch. “The longer the bees are exposed to potential infestation the greater the chance they will be.”

“I know you’ll make every effort to be swift, Chief,” said Sisko. “All right everyone, you have your assignments, dismissed.”

Odo rose to his feet, and O’Brien stopped Bashir as he was rising.

“Julian, I sent Nog to help get your chime working. We haven’t figured out what’s wrong with it yet…”

“It's all right,” said Bashir, smiling warmly. “I hope the glass didn’t cause a problem…”

“No trouble at all. Easily cleaned up.”

“Glass?” Dax was confused and intrigued.

“Nothing important,” said Bashir with a shrug.

“Maybe we can talk about it over lunch?”

“Sounds good. But it will have to be dinner, today I have lunch with Garak again.”

“You make that sound like it's a bad thing,” the three of them walked down the hall to the turbolift.

Odo kept a respectful distance, but changed his ears to a more subtly stronger shape for hearing so he could overhear their conversation without being obviously nosy.

“Well, Garak has been making hints and suggestions recently that we try another holosuite program, now that he knows about my enhancements,” Bashir seemed to waffle at this. “I’m just not sure I want to go on a holosuite adventure that is meant to test how strong I can really be on the battlefield.”

“I think it would be a good thing to find out,” said Dax. “Worf said he was curious as well. He doesn’t have many people who can spar at his level.”

“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Bashir protested, and O’Brien chuckled.

“Well don’t tell Garak that, he might take you up on it,” he said.

“I don’t take your meaning,” said Bashir, and Odo suspected he knew exactly what the Chief meant.

“You know Garak still feels attracted to you right?” Dax asked. “Even though he complains about your genetic enhancements, he still wants your company.”

“I doubt it was a secret to him,” O’Brien said. “He probably already knew and was just playing along all this time.”

“Maybe,” Bashir looked very concerned by the idea that the Cardassian tailor Garak might have already known and said nothing. “It's something to ask him about at lunch.”

“Do you like him still?”

Bashir seemed annoyed by this question, but Odo was unable to overhear his response as the turbolift doors closed on the trio and Odo was forced to wait for its return. Kira had been beside him this whole time and she was grinning, knowingly.

“So, did you hear anything good?”

“Oh, well,” he gruffly looked away from her, embarrassed to have been so duly caught eavesdropping.

He could never get anything passed her for long. Except that one thing...that one secret.

His feelings for her.

* * *

“This is not good,” the Apiarist Corban was surveying the three transparent styrolite quarantined hives with a tricorder, dressed in his white cotton beekeeper’s suit, shaking his head. “Not good at all. Bees have escaped from this hive.”

“Are you sure?” Chief O’Brien watched the two Apiarists as they scanned and examined each of the hives. “We beamed them right here from the ship cargo and nothing has come in here since. The styrolite should have held.”

“There’s a breach in the containment on this hive,” said Alnan, coming to the third box, and he breathed out, as his finger found a ragged edge. “Here. Fortunately, I’m still detecting all three Queens. The other two hives are still in stasis, but this hive is starting to regain consciousness.”

“We won't be able to put them back into stasis now, it was already a shock to their systems just to transport them. Any tiny changes in the environment can affect their behaviour,” Corban said. “But they won’t go far from their Queen and they will return to the hive. We can’t risk they might be contaminated out there wherever they’ve gone, so we need to seal this hive off again and capture the others.”

“Re-case this hive in styrolite then?” O’Brien was feeling embarrassed. “Or maybe we’ll use an energy field.”

It seemed almost as if they had already failed if there were bees loose on the station.

“We need to allow the bees time to adjust before we can risk putting them back into the styrolite,” said Alnan. “Or we could lose even more bees from the stress.”

“We tag every bee in the hive we can get our hands on, but if the Queen starts making workers we may have trouble keeping track of their numbers. Right now the Queen is in this section,” Corban pointed to the left most side of the hive.

O’Brien decided that the Apiarists were now entirely focused on the health of the Queen and making sure there were no contaminants present and instead focused his attention on handing out assignments to his crew. The containment field around the third hive was his task, and he decided that making sure all three hives were contained would be a top priority before he started on the bio-lock.

_Hopefully we can find those escapees quickly, before anything else goes wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is creepier than a knock on the door and an empty hallway. Brrrrrr!


	2. Tiny Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two in one day. I may get this written in time for Halloween after all. :)

Constable Odo found his way up to the second level of the promenade, a worried Bajoran deputy at his side, the frantic Bajoran pointing with his fingers. A few people were milling about on either side of the problem walkway in question, with security on either side, one nervous security officer slowly trying to approach the center. Odo scoffed mentally at their timid nature. It was a situation they were all trained for, and nobody needed to panic.

Doctor Julian Bashir was leaning on the railing of the second level promenade, looking like he might jump, but Odo guessed that Bashir’s purpose wasn’t suicide today.

Still, he couldn’t be too sure and he had to exercise caution in situations such as these. The Doctor was standing there with his hands leaning forward casually on the railing, as if he had stopped along the walkway to look out over the promenade, rather than what he was actually doing, standing with both heels on the edge over the precipice, his hands on the rail the only thing keeping him from falling backwards into space. He could certainly survive such a fall easily, as a genetically engineered man that jump would be no trouble for him. But Odo took a moment in consideration.

_What is he looking at?_

Bashir was staring up at the ceiling, looking up out into nothing, and Odo briefly looked up with his own eyes to be certain the genetically engineered doctor hadn’t seen something that had missed his security team’s notice.

“Well?” he asked Deputy Seelee, who was sitting there looking like a skittish Betazoid kitten at the edge of the walkway.

“Well, he seems to not be interested in jumping...or talking. Or doing anything besides looking up at nothing.”

“He might be hallucinating...allow me…”

Odo stalked passed her, but slowed down as he drew closer to the Doctor, and considered. Less than three hours ago the man had been walking towards the turbolift talking about his nervousness about his lunch with Garak, and he had otherwise seemed in a normal mood. This was not a man prone to depression and self-destructive behaviour. But perhaps the electrical shock described to them by Sisko during the staff meeting had done something to him neurologically that hadn’t shown up in medical scans? Or perhaps he really was that nervous about his lunch with Garak?

“Odo to infirmary, are you ready?”

“We’re ready when you are.”

Protocol required him to take hold of a jumper and beam them both to the infirmary, where a counselor would be waiting. Odo took a deep breath, and moved into the hearing range of the precariously perched human. But first he would try to reason with the man.

“Doctor...Doctor Bashir?”

Bashir didn’t seem to see or hear him. His eyes were looking up at seemingly nothing. The other half of the walkway ended at the second level of Quark’s and most people there were being redirected by his guards or stopped from leaving. Some people were looking out in wonder and strangeness at this situation. A jumper wasn’t a usual occurrence on the station.

“Doctor Bashir?”

“Come closer Odo, come closer, it's not afraid…”

“‘It’?”

Odo realized that Bashir had not been looking up at the ceiling, but at his own hair. A tiny insect was moving resolutely now from out of the man’s wavy brown bangs and Odo nodded knowingly.

A Bajoran honeybee. Odo got even closer. The insect crawled down Bashir’s forehead, then settled on the bridge of his nose and wafted its wings. But it seemed uninterested in moving or flying away. Neither did the Doctor.

“Doctor, are you alright?”

“Isn’t it fascinating?” he sounded bright, normal, but distant, entirely focused on the creature on his face, and he even leaned his head back more so the insect could be more balanced as it started cleaning itself. “Such delicate balance, the wings perfectly designed for flight, for hovering, the legs so tiny and yet capable of making such delicate shapes like wax cells, cleaning its tiny antenna...a tiny little life...”

“Doctor...are you aware you are on the wrong side of the railing?”

“What?” Bashir seemed to consider for a moment, then looked sideways, not moving his head. He must have started to realize what a precarious situation he was in for he gasped back a laugh, trying not to move. “Oh of course, I saw it hovering there and wanted to catch it, but I didn’t want to startle it. We’re supposed to save them if we can…”

Bashir quietly began to climb slowly back over to the safe side of the railing, to everyone’s relief. Odo passed him, and walked into Quark’s pointedly to grab an empty drinking glass from off of a table. He returned and to his relief his security had still kept their distance and Bashir was still on the right side of the railing. He didn’t want anyone to accidentally get stung. He held out the glass pointedly, and Bashir gently lifted a finger. Rather than flying off, the bee willingly changed perches and was transferred to the glass, and Odo formed his hand into a cap to cover it. The bee seemed completely unconcerned by its change in situations.

“Doctor you just gave everyone a serious heart attack,” Odo went into lecture mode. “You could have at least told my security team why you were perched over the promenade like a bird about to take flight…”

“My apologies constable,” said Bashir, but his eyes seemed to be on the glass and Odo took the distraction away from him by fully engulfing it with his limb to break his eye contact with the bee. The doctor looked up at him, almost forlornly. “I didn’t want it to escape so I just stayed where I was.”

“Well it's all right now. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m quite alright, though I think I’m late for my lunch with Garak…” he looked stricken.

“Quark’s, second level?” Odo looked over to the crowd milling there now, including Garak, who was standing discreetly by a support beam. “Not your usual spot for lunch.”

“No I suppose not, but he said lunch was on him today,” Bashir looked severely embarrassed now, the crowd was rather large. “Thank you Odo...I’ll...check in with Counselor Telnorri after lunch…”

“Yes, please do…” Odo said firmly, and turned to instruct his deputies before tapping his badge. “Odo to Infirmary, the crisis is now over.”

* * *

“Well, you see, the thing about it is…”

Elim Garak could well understand the Doctor’s embarrassment as he stammered out his explanation of the capture of the honeybee, from climbing over the railing to reach out to try and grasp the creature to having it fly straight into his hair unconcernedly and parking there like a little shuttlecraft on its landing strip. Odo’s arrival and the realization that they all thought he was a jumper was turning the human’s skin that interesting shade of red that Garak secretly enjoyed seeing. All the blood vessels were widening and causing blood to rush into his cheeks.

“Well anyways, I wasn’t in any danger, of course I wasn’t going to jump, I mean, I guess I understand why they would think that, I guess they didn’t see the bee...it was rather small and…”

Garak watched him, smiling placatingly and thanked the Ferengi waiter when their lunches were delivered, hopefully giving the Doctor something to focus on other than his previous embarrassment. Whilst he enjoyed the color that the Doctor turned when in such a state, he was certainly not wanting to keep him that way, or lunch would be a much less pleasant occurrence. Doctor Bashir could become very upset when embarrassed for so long, even losing interest in social interaction. This would not do.

“Well all is well that ends well, isn’t that the expression humans use?” Garak asked brightly.

“Yes, of course,” Bashir seemed to recover himself well, and the lovely plomeek soup that he ordered was giving off a tempting smell that was sure to please his companion. It was one of the Doctor’s favorite meals. “I hope so anyway, every single bee is important to the success of the research team’s efforts.”

Garak liked the light in the Doctor’s eyes, and thus decided this thread of conversation wasn’t too out of the cards to continue.

“I’ve heard there’s already been some concern with the containment of the hives?”

Garak nipped the vegetable at the end of his fork, his own dish a rather conservative salad based dish. He was hoping to trim himself down a little bit. If only he had a warm companion to help him exercise away some of his excess width?

“Well I haven’t actually been paying attention to the security updates, I’m afraid. I spent all morning setting up screening details for Cardassian vole tick removal at all the docking ports and transporter stations.”

“How dull,” Garak said, feeling a sigh. “Well it seems like there won’t be much to be concerned about with the bees, especially since you have already so quickly captured one.”

“I can’t imagine many escaped,” Bashir said, and he looked up at Garak. “But they really are such even tempered creatures, it didn’t mind my presence at all.”

The Doctor’s eyes sparkled with a strange light, an excitement that usually took him over when talking about a medical topic, or a particularly engaging piece of literature. He hoped, maybe, that this was a sign.

“I’m glad that you have found a new subject to devote yourself to. I suspect there is much medical research to be gleaned from this situation.”

“Bajoran honeybees are very similar to Earth’s bees,” Bashir said in soft delight, latching immediately onto the topic Garak offered him. “Most species of bees have honey with antibacterial properties and this one is no exception. But each species has a different type of antibacterial honey, which...”

Garak kept him in this good mood discussing the bees and their biological differences from other species of bees well until dessert, nodding at appropriate points in the conversation and injecting a bit of good humor when needed to liven up the mostly scientific subject of conversation. Again, he hoped that the man’s good mood was a good sign and broached the subject that was on his mind as Bashir was just finishing up his Idanian spice pudding. The end of lunch was always a good time to suggest their next meeting.

“So Doctor, have you given any consideration to my suggestion of a holosuite adventure?”

Bashir paused, almost looking alarmed, his spiced pudding shaking from side to side on his spoon, which had paused midair. Garak feared he had calculated incorrectly, as Bashir lowered the spoon thoughtfully.

“Actually, I have considered it,” said the Doctor, looking momentarily distant, the sparkle momentarily leaving his eyes.

Garak felt his heart sinking a little, resigned to being rebuffed. And then a sudden bright light flared to life in Bashir’s eyes and he smiled.

“Have you heard of the Vulcan Sun Sands?”

Garak started. He had been planning for and expecting rejection, but had been hoping to perhaps enjoy another spy program with the Doctor. This question was completely unexpected.

“The Sun Sands?”

“It's a warm beach on Vulcan, we can’t swim, Vulcan water is too acidic, but it's a lovely place for a stroll, and very very warm. I thought you might like that…”

The Sun Sands. Was the Doctor suggesting what he thought he was suggesting?

“Doctor,” Garak felt his heart beating rapidly and he caught the younger man’s eyes. He could see the nervousness there and the bright light of hope. “I’m quite certain I’ve heard before that the Sun Sands are considered a romantic sightseeing spot for couples in the Federation…”

“Yes, I know,” Bashir said, without hesitation, and a slight nervousness entered his eyes. “Well I have a program for it. I can book a holosuite with Quark?”

The hopefulness was still there, the entreaty, and a slight longing and extreme fear of rejection. But most strongly was that bright white edge of determination that he had not been expecting from his normally naive young friend. It had been a long time since he had been on the receiving end of that look from Doctor Bashir.

“My dear Doctor,” Garak said, uncertain as to why his stomach and heartbeat were so suddenly bereft of their usual steadiness, “I would be delighted.”

Julian Bashir’s warm joyful smile was the clear and obvious answer, and Garak couldn’t help it. He was blushing. He was certain he was blushing, that blue color was rising up over his ridges. But to be asked on a romantic date, so publicly, something he had never expected would happen, was a rather embarrassing occurrence for a Cardassian.

It was more than he could ever hope for. What could have given the Doctor the courage to ask?

_If I should even hope to guess, perhaps it was a tiny little Bajoran creature. If it is, then it has my complete and utter gratitude, of that I can be most certain._

* * *

“Well this is strange…”

Odo peered into the small glass isolation tub that the Apiarist had been puting the rescued bees into. Two more had been brought by officers who had tracked them down to the promenade. All the food and flowers on the promenade had been a clear temptation for the creatures.

“What’s strange? Besides the way Chief O’Brien is dressed?”

“Hey hey!” Chief O’Brien shifted the jumpsuit he was wearing. “This is a Federation standard beekeeping outfit.”

“It's far too bulky,” said the Apiarist Corban. “You should replicate a Bajoran one…”

O’Brien sighed and looked around. He was probably imagining himself wearing what the Bajoran staff members had replicated for themselves, the beekeeping hoods, gloves and boots over their normal duty uniforms. Starfleet officers could be very stubborn about the superiority of their equipment at times. Usually they were right. But the complete body suit O’Brien was wearing seemed to be a bit overkill.

“Well, back to the subject at hand,” said Alnan, having not lifted his head from examining the bees in the box. “One of these bees is different from the others…”

“Different?” O’Brien said, and they all looked down into the box.

The bees looked quite ordinary.

“Different, there’s a difference in the readings of...this one…” he isolated it with his tiny tool, nudging the creature along in the box so it moved away from the others. A small emitter was puffing out small calming shots of a sedative smoke to keep the bees placid and on their feet rather than on the wing. “This one...the tracking number is…” he checked with his scanner. “Three dash one thirty four.”

“The bee Doctor Bashir almost threw himself off the second level trying to catch,” Odo said with a chuckle.

“It's immune system is stronger, definitely,” said Corban. “I’m reading changes to its genetic structure. In fact, these are the changes we suggested that Starfleet should test when they work with the bees.”

“And I read a stronger venom rating,” Alnan shook his head. “This is concerning. We can’t return it to the hive. A female drone can still become a Queen if the previous Queen dies, and who knows what the venom would do if this thing became aggressive?”

“What could have caused it to change?” Corban pulled off his hood, nodding as the strange bee was isolated by Alnan.

“Perhaps it's a natural mutation, a response to the vole ticks themselves we haven’t noticed,” Alnan said. “We should double check the entire hive, and the other two, for any other genetic anomalies. Starfleet is worried that any small genetic changes could have a problematic affect on Bajor’s ecosystem years down the road that we cannot predict.”

“It could be a result of the accident with the cargo ship,” said O’Brien, looking happy to be removing his hood now that the open bee container had been closed again. “I’ll check the logs and study the ship’s records to see if the energy surge reached their cargo bay before we transported the hives.”

“And I’ll double check Kai Winn’s story…” said Odo pointedly.

“Is it...necessary to bother the Kai?” said Alnan looking momentarily stricken.

“After Doctor Bashir’s acrobatics on the promenade I wonder if maybe there was residual energy in him that may have transferred to the honey bee. We need to be certain of exactly where that energy came from. Remember, the Kai was travelling with a broken Orb.”

The two Bajoran Apiarists looked at one another with severe concern, and O’Brien was already directing his team to gather up their bee catching equipment. More bees needed catching, a few were still at large.

Odo felt a momentary concern now fill him as he looked down at the isolated bee, its movements speeding up as it found its way around the edges of the box as if looking for a way to escape. With Bajoran Orbs, anything could happen.

And they had to be ready for the possibility that ‘anything’ had.

* * *

Kira Nerys found herself making the Infirmary at a dead run, Sisko ahead of her by two long legged steps, and she mentally wished for a moment that she had legs and speed to match his. Her heart rate was quickening with every step as they rushed as a pair into the bustling infirmary.

“Doctor Bashir,” she said, as soon as she was in, and stopped.

And stared. Kai Winn and Doctor Bashir were laughing, his hand resting pleasantly on her shoulder.

“Well, I expect I won’t be as afraid of being stung now as I was as a child,” said Kai Winn, not even looking concerned about the hand on her arm that she had bare up to her elbow. “It barely even nicked me before I smacked it.”

“You have fast reflexes,” Bashir turned to look at Kira and Sisko, a tiny dead honey bee with its stinger still attached being held aloft in his free hand by a pair of tweezers. “She’s all right, she has no allergies to insect bites. I don’t recommend doing anything strenuous with that arm for the rest of the day, Kai Winn. The nurse will give you a painkiller, but the swelling will go down on its own in a day or two.”

Kai Winn gingerly touched the red raised area on her arm and gave Doctor Bashir a genuine smile. Nurse Jabara moved slowly, almost hesitant to treat the injury.

“Thank you Doctor. I feel much safer now,” said Winn.

“Thank you for the story,” Doctor Bashir said genuinely. “I appreciate the trust you’ve placed in me by sharing. Captain,” Bashir lifted the bee up to eye level. “If it isn’t too much trouble, I was hoping to do my own private study of the bees while they were on the station. I’ll perform an autopsy of this one to see what I can learn from it.”

“Please, by all means,” said Sisko, looking relieved and amused. “Kai Winn, I understand Odo wants to discuss the cargo ship incident with you one last time. We’re hoping to track down the source of the energy surge...”

“Oh, well, I suppose if I must,” said the Kai, looking immediately as if her previous light mood from before had never occurred. “It will have to be quick, I’d like to go back to my room and rest.”

“Of course, and Doctor, let me know if any more bee sting related patients show up in your office.”

“I most certainly will,” Bashir said, though his eyes were now entirely focused on his new prize. “And I’ll show this bee to the Apiarists before I start my research,” he paused for a moment, crossed the infirmary, the tweezers still in hand, honey bee prize held aloft like a trophy above him, and quickly picked out a clean test tube from his medical supplies to plop the dead creature into.

Sisko left, and Kira waited as the nurse completed the treatments, and made her way with Kai Winn back to the temple. She nodded when she saw that Odo was already waiting outside the temple for the requested interview.

Hopefully this wouldn’t go as bad as she suspected it could. She knew Odo left no stone unturned and Kai Winn was certainly someone with a lot of stones to hide secrets under. And she would readily throw those stones at whoever crossed her path.

At least this time it seemed as if Doctor Bashir had found a way to dodge them.

* * *

Jadzia Dax leaned back in her chair, and considered the empty case and the piles of shards on the plastic work surface she had transported them to. It had taken her all day to sort the shards into piles of related pieces, scanning and rescanning and changing her mind, and finally coming to a point where the pieces were sorted as closely to their original locations as she could guess, and she was tired. And now rather bored from staying in the same room in the same chair all day long staring at crystal fragments. Her eyes strayed over the piles slowly, and she took a deep breath.

_I guess I can start piecing together the largest sections first._

The Bajoran Orbs were, technically, already broken, made up of multiple pieces of crystal held together with the energy that each Orb contained. Repairing the damaged crystals would put the Orb ‘back together’ but it would only be ‘held together’ when the energy from the wormhole entities was present.

She had detected some residual energy still left in one of the shards, so she hoped this would be enough. She still wasn’t sure how the energy of each Orb functioned. But she wasn’t insane enough that she’d touch them with her own skin. A micro transporter in her lab would be used to reorient the Orb pieces back into their natural positions once she repaired the damaged ones.

An initial scan had shown that the Orb was in a sorry state. Almost all the shards were broken in half, some into three parts. But the final crystal sections would be large, not small, and there wasn’t anything missing that she could tell. All the pieces were here. There were just a lot of them, and they all seemed to have the same aggravating shape.

_I can use a synthetic membrane to hold them together before I start fusing the crystal. I hope the Prophets won’t mind._

The last sarcastic thought felt good, after an entire day of having to deal with constant calls from Kai Winn, asking her about her project. She did have other duties besides dealing with the Orb.

She paused, then reached for her mug of raktajino, and lifted it to her lips, holding it there for a moment before taking a sip. She was considering the piles, wondering which she should start arranging first, when a slight motion caught the corner of her eye.

She averted her eyes sideways, expecting to see the lights of one of her lab sensors changing in relation to the arrival of another person, but instead there was nobody there. The room was empty. She was alone.

“Huh,” she turned her head back to her station, and that was when she saw it.

It was in here. Her eyes moved slowly down to her console, and she kept her hand held up, the cup shaking, but she didn’t dare to make any sudden motions.

It was a tiny honey bee. She had always sweetened her raktajino just a little and now cursed herself for it because the small insect was now entrenched in the ring that she had left on the console from her mug, its tiny tongue rapidly shooting out to lap up tastes of the sticky sweet caffeinated substance. She didn’t know what the caffeine would do to the honey bee’s circulatory system and brain but she could well imagine.

_Murder, mayhem, and stinging a highly allergic Trill lieutenant._

The crew had been ordered to capture every bee they could find, and this was an endangered species. Smashing it with her cup was not an option, no matter how tense the presence of a potentially deadly insect made her. With calm clarity and a proper Starfleet mind, she could act without risking injury or destroying the insect.

She moved the mug to her other hand and set it down slowly in a different place, and then slowly moved her hand up to her combadge.

The bee stopped, and looked up at her, her hand still hovering inches over her badge. It was looking at her, its antenna moving slowly around as if it was scanning the room with twin tricorders.

Her eyes and its eyes were locked together. In a breath, she felt she could almost sense it was considering her, deciding whether or not she was a threat or not, and then it launched itself up, and she jerked back and it hovered for a moment in front of her.

Its eyes held a strange sparkle, a momentary bright white intelligence.

Sentience.

And then it darted away from her, down and out to the edge of the floor and through a crack between wall sections, disappearing into the darkness.

 _That was too close. Too close for comfort._ Her hand was shaking as she hit her combadge.

“Dax to ops, there was a honey bee here just now in the lab...could you send an engineering team? And tell them to bring some shield generators with them. I’d rather not risk being stung by one.”

Maybe it was time to take a break. She had been cooped up in her lab all day after all. She couldn’t possibly have seen what she had thought she saw in the bee’s eyes. Certainly not. Nothing in the reports by the Apiarists indicated in any way that the bees were capable of advanced intelligence.

_They’re just bees. Just simple small unimportant honey bees. Right?_

She was still shaking by the time she reached her quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love bees. I also have been stung a few times so I know how damned much it hurts to be stung. It always amazes me when I see video of beekeepers handling bees without gloves. Be very careful with bees and don't handle them unless you are an expert and know what you are doing.


	3. Adoration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ramping up the creep and romance in equal doses here. Yes indeedy.

Constable Odo could barely contain his anger and frustration. It had been over an hour since Kai Winn had left his office, but it still felt as if she was here. For one thing, his deputies were all still looking like the Prophets themselves had descended upon them for a visit. 

For another, Kira was still here, looking like she wanted to bite something too. For an hour now they had gone over her second story, comparing it to the first, and Odo felt like he was getting nowhere.

“We can’t get her in trouble over a minor discrepancy in her story.”

“But this is a rather significant discrepancy for her to leave out, Major...”

“Well not many people touch the Orbs and not have an Orb experience,” Kira said. “Which is why it's forbidden to touch them intentionally. She must have felt underwhelmed and disappointed to just get a little jolt and nothing more. I would be too.”

“Maybe, but we now know that there was energy from the Orb loose on the cargo ship before the hives were transported over. Remind me to talk to Doctor Bashir and make sure he’s still feeling like himself.”

“If there was a...a Prophet on the station we would have seen some sign of it by now...the only thing we’ve seen is a bit of energy dispersal causing the quarantine to fail,” Kira took a deep breath, and Odo felt guilty for having kept her here for so long. “I think I should take this report to Sisko, and we’ll let Dax and O’Brien deal with it.”

Odo leaned forward in his seat and felt his frustration must have been showing on his face.

“I can deal with any security problem you give me. And I can accept that as the Kai of Bajor she has some certain level of privilege above everyone else. But I will admit that this has me feeling personally offended. I am usually able to distance myself from a problem.”

Kira smiled, and leaned forward.

“She seems to have that effect on a lot of people.”

“Indeed, I’m just not accustomed to being the one she’s having that effect on,” Odo said, and then smiled. “Well I could always assign a detail for her protection...after all she is an important dignitary…”

“Odo…” Kira said warningly, but the smile told him that she was fully delighted by the prospect of deputies following the Kai around the station. 

He knew he was.

* * *

The Sun Sands of Vulcan consisted of bright sparkling crystal powder beaches, sheltered by tall red canyon walls in a horseshoe around a crater lake of pure ice blue waters. Different from most sand beaches, the fine soft sand gave off refractions of rainbow light that danced above the sand and reflected the heat from the sun. It was beautiful...and warm! Oh so toasty warm, and the soft sand under his scaled toes was such a familiar feeling.

Julian Bashir had already been inside the program waiting for him upon entering, and Garak had been directed by a holographic Vulcan attendant to a small private room where he could change into a more beach worthy wrap robe and sandals. Garak knew he would be travelling barefoot, but had accepted the protective eye shields meant to prevent the strongest of the reflective light that could sometimes be too bright to see. Garak accepted the ordinary limits of his own unaltered eyes, despite Bashir’s choice to forego the eyewear.

It was wonderfully hot out on the sand, and Garak felt his body responding in ways that it hadn’t in several years. A few brief excursions in sauna caves and spa programs were a far cry from being out under the warm hot sun, ankle deep in a cushion of soft white sand. Garak had to hand it to the Doctor; he always had the most high rated and quality programs to share with friends. He expected his holo-writer friend was responsible for the creation of this one as well, the realism of his programs was quite famous amongst the crew.

But the most enjoyable part of the program was his companion, living, and real, and dressed in the traditional rust colored Vulcan robes and sandals, looking quite like he was enjoying the sun just as much as Garak was, looking out over the sands towards the water calmly, as Garak came up beside him.

Bashir smiled. No words were needed, his warm brown eyes said everything that needed to be said. Obviously they would start with a stroll, as Doctor Bashir had suggested when they made the date, and they took a slow easy pace. All the sparkling rainbow light at their feet seemed to dance, the soft sound of the waves was soothing, moving back and forth with the tides, and his companion’s steady breathing.

“Garak,” Bashir broke the silence, and he turned to look at him. “I’m so happy to be here with you...I can’t tell you how nervous I was to ask you...to ask you…”

“To ask me for a date?” Garak surmised. Humans had interesting subjects they could be nervous about, romance was one of them. “My dear Doctor, I am thrilled, and a little surprised. Cardassians of the more traditional bent tend to move more slowly in relationships…”

“You do, I wasn’t even sure if you were interested in me...still…” the last word was tacked on as almost an afterthought, his eyes were momentarily distant. “But I was feeling, I don’t know, I guess ‘bold’ is the word I’d use to describe how I’ve been feeling all day…”

“And now? Now what do you feel?”

Bashir turned to look at him, and for a moment, Garak was concerned. His brown eyes were distant, and the reflection of the sands gave them the strange appearance of glowing with an inner light.

“Now I am free of all the barriers, whatever I feared was gone, and really, what is there to be afraid of…?”

Whatever Bashir had been afraid of, it had to have been very little at all, for he closed the short distance between them until their chests were practically touching, to press his lips to Garaks’ own. A very intimate gesture, for a first outing. It was almost too fast, an immediate move into the realms of the physical. It was too much like the Doctor back when he was naive and attracted to relationships for the sake of sex and physical release, and Garak was momentarily taken with a concern that this was only a passing fancy on Bashir’s part. He had not worked hard for six years cultivating their friendship and trust for a momentary fling.

“Garak?”

The Doctor seemed to sense his hesitation, and the fear of rejection in his eyes broke down the last wall between them. Garak pulled Bashir to him and their mouths seemed to fuse together with this second kiss, fear melting away in the heat and the pounding rhythm of their heartbeats, pulsing in time with the crashing of the waves.

Whatever had been worrying him wasn’t worth letting this opportunity slip away forever with the retreating tides.

* * *

Julian wasn’t sure what he was expecting from kissing Garak, but it wasn’t this. With women before it had been a wet and demanding battle of the sexes, one that he usually won. But kissing Garak was bereft of any battlefields. He had already surrendered and was melting, melting, almost totally made of liquid in the man’s arms.

In the past, he would never have considered another man. It just didn’t seem like he could be happy in the subordinate position, and Garak was anything but subordinate in his own honest opinion. But Garak’s quiet hints and suggestions over the years had been working through the remnants of a very ancient human male prejudice towards vulnerability, a prejudice he hated in himself and which he knew had no place in the 24th century.

It was really ridiculous. Now that he was here, in Garak’s arms, and totally surrendering to the heat and melting pleasure of those lips that he would never have risked before, it felt so right. Scaled yet subtle and soft, moist, and very very skilled…if only he dared...stretch out his tongue...

Garak broke the kiss and looked at him with one eye ridge raised.

“Wha...what?”

“I think you would have gone forever if I hadn’t stopped us,” Garak said softly. “For a first date, that was rather lovely, but…a bit much.”

Julian colored, and seemed to realize just how lost he had become. Cardassians who followed traditional mating norms left physical intimacy until at least the third formal date, and sex was still out of the question then.

Julian wasn’t sure he could handle that. It was going to be an extreme test of his patience.

“Garak, I’m...sorry if I...I’m…”

“Clearly the heat of Vulcan is getting to you, perhaps a bit of shade will do?”

Julian wanted to protest that he was genetically engineered, that the heat wasn’t what was getting to him, but he didn’t want to press. Garak clearly didn’t want their intimacy to go further than kissing today and he wasn’t going to change his mind. It was a lovely kiss, an amazing kiss, nothing like he had experienced with a woman, but anything more than that and he risked scaring off his new partner, and that was the crux.

He wanted Garak. God how he wanted him. But he knew this very traditional Cardassian would be looking for a monogamous and more permanent arrangement, and Julian just wanted to see how far they would go, how long it would last. He was practical, he knew he was not a settler, not a family man, and he was mostly looking forward to the next date, the next opportunity to kiss Garak, but nothing more forward thinking than that.

Another surprise was waiting for them in the rest house, and Garak raised both his eye ridges this time.

“My apologies,” said the holographic Quark, looking like he meant it. “If you’re seeing this message it means my bar has been closed early due to unforeseen circumstances…”

Garak ignored him, and ordered the hologram to cancel before its message could complete. He summoned the exit portal and studied the screen there intently, and Bashir stood where he was, feeling his chest tighten in fear at what may have prompted the message, and severely disappointed. This meant that the date was over.

“The promenade is closing, and everyone in Quark’s is being filtered through a security team. Get dressed quickly,” Garak was already headed back out the guest house door towards the changing rooms where their non-holographic clothing was waiting for them.

“Someone must have stolen something, or done something,” Julian sighed, following him, and then he had to wait outside while the modest Cardassian dressed, cursing himself for choosing an intimate, more sensual setting for a first date with Garak. A dinner at the Bajoran restaurant might have been a better fit.

“Or killed someone…” Garak said from behind the screen.

Julian felt his chest was aching, but he knew only a very serious issue that wasn’t a red alert situation would have caused Quark’s holosuites to have a waiting message, rather than shutting down completely. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had, Garak was already exiting the holosuite as if his feet were on fire.

_At least something is on fire…_

* * *

“I’m sorry,” said Sisko. “We’ll do everything we can…I’ve had security begin evacuating the core of civilians to the habitat ring to minimize any risk, but we can’t be sure they’re even still here in the core.”

Corban Jaffa was sitting with his gloved hands over his face, looking as he had just lost his only child. The beehive he was sitting next to, empty, bereft of all activity, was a silent accusation.

“I left for an hour for dinner, and to read over my notes about the mutant bee. It was just an hour,” Corban shook his head. “An hour…”

“Chief,” Sisko looked over at the frustrated engineer, feeling as cross as the other man looked. “What happened?”

“I can’t even begin to tell you,” the frustrated Irishman threw up his hands. “We had this thing under force fields as we were working on the containment fields, and everything shows the force fields never dropped, or wavered, not once after Corban left. It's just not possible for them to have escaped! I mean, how do thousands of bees just get through force fields and nobody notices?”

“Well they have, and now we have a serious problem,” Sisko turned to look at Alnan this time, since he seemed to be in a calmer state than his companion. “I read in the reports I’ve been given that you have a way to identify individual bees? Can we use this to track them down?”

“Only at close range,” said Alnan immediately. “We put a tag on each bee, a tiny sensor that lets us identify specific individuals. With over thirty thousand bees in each colony, we only tag a sample section of bees or individual bees we’re working with in the lab. Workers, drones and of course we tag the Queen, but it would be impossible to tag them all.”

Sisko nodded, and sighed.

“Chief, I’d like to find a way to scan for those bees that are already tagged.”

“Worker bees will always return to their Queen,” said Alnan. “If she’s alive she will have possibly established a new hive, somewhere near food that’s also warm, but not too hot, and safe from predators. If she’s dead they will make a new Queen, one we won’t be able to track.” 

“We could catch a bee and tag it ourselves,” said O’Brien. “And track it around the station. It should return to its new hive and lead us right to it.”

“Do it,” said Sisko immediately. “We’ll continue with the core evacuation in the meantime.”

“We’ll need a tracking device that we can track from a distance but still lightweight enough for the bees to carry,” said Corban, looking a little more hopeful at this. “I’ll show you a design I’ve been working on myself.”

“As quickly as you can manage,” Sisko said. “We can’t risk having all these bees loose on the station with people.”

“The bees in this hive were very docile, very unlikely to sting, if the people on the station follow the protocols we’ve set out the risk of injury should be minimal,” said Alnan firmly.

“Well Kai Winn was already stung by one,” Sisko said, and the two Bajorans immediately turned white as snow. “Find those bees.”

“They can’t have gone far. A big mass of warm flying bodies, maybe in the environmental ducts?” O’Brien turned to address his engineering team, who had been standing waiting nearby, all of them looking embarrassed and guilty. “We’ll start with the most obvious choice of a station wide scan for large active heat signatures that didn’t exist on the station before.”

“What happened with Lieutenant Dax in the lab showed us that there are so many nooks and crannies for them to get through, even with force fields in place, that we can’t leave anything to chance…”

Sisko decided it might be prudent, after what Constable Odo had discovered to go speak to the Kai himself.

It wasn’t a meeting he was looking forward to.

* * *

Julian returned to his quarters feeling severely bereft of companionship, and severely put out by the standard issue PADD the security had handed him as he left the bar, with emergency protocols for handling bees outlined in layman's terms for the people of the station. He would look them over later, and he knew Girani didn’t need his help with the transfer of medical staff to the habitat ring medstation. He had passed it on the way back to his quarters and it had been bustling with ensigns bringing emergency medical supplies and a few duty nurses. But the situation seemed calm otherwise and nobody had reported seeing any bees.

He didn’t care. His date couldn’t have gone further south, even if he had taken Garak to the frozen Northern mountains of Bajor. Garak wanted romance without sex and Julian had totally defaulted to kissing and physical touch. No wonder the man had run for the door as if Hells hounds were on his tail.

 _Humans do physically touch a lot,_ Julian mentally complained, as he poked his security code into his door access. _And we’ve known each other for six years...and he kissed me too. He must have been expecting I’d want more than just pressing my palm to his, right?_

His quarters were dark and empty. The chime hadn’t been fixed yet, and Bashir fully expected it to go off the moment he closed his door behind him, but the room was silent. He waited, standing there, studying the furniture for several minutes. Perhaps they had disabled the chime completely?

_Might have just been something loose that they fixed without realizing it._

Depression threatened to overwhelm him. Loneliness, and the physical need to touch and be touched.

With a deep, almost bitter sigh he headed in the direction of the bathroom. They hadn’t gotten any dinner either, he’d been planning for some replicated goodies to be transported into the holosuite when requested, later in the date.

_So much for that._

The sonic shower wasn’t enough, and he turned on the water and turned it down as cold as was comfortable and just leaned back in the shower and closed his eyes.

_Forget it...Garak is in control of this relationship right now. You may have felt bold enough to ask for a date, but he’s in control, he’s always been in control. He will control you in bed too...is that what you want?_

It was a strange thought. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Perhaps that distant uneducated prejudiced part of his distant pre-modern ancestry that balked at the idea of a man laying on his stomach in bed and just taking it…

_??_

It was...almost like a sound. But no. It was the feeling of a presence. Julian looked up, and was startled.

_!!_

A thought, and a bubble of a mind, so primitive that he wasn’t sure he had even felt it. He had felt a mind touching his, and he looked up at the shower door, and found himself being watched.

It was only a Bajoran honeybee, obviously. Nothing dangerous. But he knew he should report it. Report the strange telepathic feel of having the bee watching him...

It wasn’t alone. Julian felt almost nervous when a second, fuzzy form slipped out from over the edge of the shower door and joined the other, the two bees shaking their bodies and making shapes with their movements on the shower ceiling, writhing and moving around one another in a hypnotic dance, moisture forming on their fur from the damp air.

Bee language. More telepathic minds came upon him, and he let their tiny minds touch him as they would, awed and humbled by the feelings of trust and companionship they were sending him. 

Julian turned off the shower and sat there, naked, dripping, and cold, watching them, fully entranced, entranced like he had when he had caught the bee on the promenade. And then another joined them, and another, and soon a whole chorus of dancing bees was writhing in a mass around the shower stall, on the walls, on the floors...soon they were covering his body, thousands of tiny feet touching his bare skin, his nose, burrowing under his hair...

He knew he should have been frightened. He knew he should have called for help or fled.

But all he could do was watch the beauty of their motions feeling completely entranced. His chest filled with warmth, a warmth as hot as the Vulcan Sun Sands, the air was filled with the steamy breathing of a thousand tiny lungs and his mind was being touched by thousands of tiny minds, all of them deeply infatuated with him, obsessed with him, enthralled by him.

Worship. Adoration. Complete, total and utter adoration. 

He had never felt so completely totally wanted and needed as he did now. Julian knew...in that moment...he knew, he was never going to let them go.

He was loved.


	4. Group Effort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another chapter posted in time for Halloween. :3

“Well people?” Sisko crossed his arms and looked around at his crew assembled in ops. “Updates! What have we got done so far?”

“The synthetic lattice should work for reassembling the Orb, whether it’ll stay together or not is up to the Prophets,” Dax looked pensive, ready for action, if a little anxious, and her arms were crossed as well, in a mirror posture of his own.

“Good work, Kai Winn will want an update before you start work today. Chief?”

Chief O’Brien just looked exhausted. Sisko gave the Chief a sympathetic smile and made a mental note to let him know later how much he appreciated all the work he had been doing. The man had been up all night working on the problem with the Apiarists. He held something up in his hand that looked like a box.

“I’ve got a bee here ready for testing...I’d like Dax to look over it. I know she’s allergic to bites...but we’re having trouble getting the bees to willingly carry the transmitter we created for them. And the Apiarists are all sleeping right now. They were up all night looking for that Queen.”

“We’ve managed to catch twenty five, and it wasn’t easy,” Odo’s face was, as it always was, neutral. “The bees have scattered themselves into random sections of the core. It's possible they no longer have a Queen, or the mutations are interfering with their ability to find their hive."

“The captured bees all have the new genetic mutations,” Kira added, inserting herself into the report. “Amongst other things, a slightly higher intelligence has been noted. They see us coming, and they run.”

“Hmm…”

Odo was staying silent, but he had a firm light in his eyes. If Kai Winn was as closed with him as she had been with Sisko, then maybe Odo’s idea of shadowing her with security was a good idea. The Orb had to have been responsible for all this. Kira looked ready for a fight, so she was fine to send to the Kai this morning. Chief O’Brien needed sleep before he could get back to work though, so the bee problem would need a new set of hands.

“Doctor Bashir, I’d like you to work in the lab with Dax and study the mutations of the bees so she can keep working on the Orb, we need to know what we’re dealing with here…”

Bashir was already looking at the case with the bee inside, with a half smile on his face belying the seriousness of the situation. Sisko knew the doctor had become fascinated with the bees, so he felt this was a good job to give the man. And the Doctor would take his medical analysis more seriously than if Sisko had sent him out bee hunting.

“Life is so surprising,” Bashir said, cryptically. “Just when you don’t expect it, something so simple as a honey bee comes along and changes everything…”

Sisko wasn’t the only one giving him annoyed looks. The Doctor was really underappreciating the seriousness of the situation.

“These may be simple bees, but whatever the Orb energy did to them has clearly had a serious effect on them if they are elluding capture so easily,” Odo inserted. “I wonder if we should try a different tactic.”

“Definitely some sort of primitive intelligence,” Dax was very proactive, and was also looking into the transparent box, showing no sign of her previous fear of the bees. “I think we should treat these bees as if they can understand us, try to work on some sort of communication system, and see if we can learn how intelligent they are.”

“I would like the engineering teams to proceed this way as well,” said Sisko. “No unnecessary bee killings…”

“We could set up some one way traps on the promenade,” said Chief O'Brien. “With some strong smelling bait to lure them in. But we’ll have to close the promenade again.”

“I think people will survive a day or two without shopping,” Sisko decided.

“I heard Quark moved one of his dabo tables into the habitat ring,” Dax said, with a knowing smile.

“I’m sure many shopkeepers will continue to offer their services from their quarters,” said Odo, changing the subject to the core evacuation. “I’ll have to give Quark a visit to make sure he’s still following Bajoran law.”

The rest of the meeting entailed the station itself and security and _Defiant_ ’s continued absence from patrolling the Badlands...everyone wanted Worf and the rest of the crew back on the station.

“I’ll contact the _Defiant_ right away,” said Kira, looking pensive. “Tell them they’re needed back home.”

“And send out a notice that we’re closed for docking from civilian ships for the time being,” Sisko said. “We need to treat this as we would treat a quarantine situation, until we have the Doctor’s report.”

“I’d better get to work right away,” said the man in question, still looking as happily content as a sleeping kitten. “I’ll need a couple sacrificial bees for the autopsy, the one I got from Kai Winn was not a mutant.”

“We have some dead ones from last night to give you Julian,” O’Brien crossed his arms, looking morose. “They were dead when we found them.”

“Hopefully they’re also mutants, and not bees from the original hive,” Bashir winced, the light leaving his eyes. “I’d dislike having to autopsy something intelligent that still has a will to live.”

“It’ll be fine. Chief, let the Apiarists know that once they have their energy back I’d like them working with the Doctor,” Sisko smiled. “You look like you haven’t had much sleep either, to be honest.”

“Don’t you worry about me,” O’Brien said, staunchly. “One cup of coffee and I’ll be good.”

The conversation changed to unimportant topics and Sisko dismissed everyone to get back to work. But he wasn’t feeling confident in the outcome of the meeting as he strode into his office. He’d been hoping for an easy solution to their problem, and no easy solution was forthcoming.

He was very much surprised to find Garak waiting for him in his office.

“Garak?”

The mysterious tailor was sitting at the leather couch in the side corner, out of sight of the people in ops, and he immediately rose and bowed himself in that very genteel Cardassian manner.

“Captain, I hope I was not being presumptive by waiting to speak with you?”

“Not at all,” Sisko said, feeling concern rising immediately to the fore. “I’m certain you’re not here to discuss Starfleet issue uniforms again.”

“Well, my opinion on that has not changed. Although the newest design has been growing on me, the shoulders are always the first thing you see when you look at a person’s attire,” he dared to come out to the front of Sisko’s desk, so that he would now be visible in ops. Everyone who was looking up at the office would see him there. “I came to address a personal issue...my young friend the good Doctor.”

“Oh?” Sisko sat down behind his desk and picked up his baseball and turned it over in his hands. “He was very cheerful this morning during the meeting, did last night’s holodeck adventure go well?”

Sisko wasn’t going to tell the man that Dax had been on him last night with laughing details of what Julian had come up with for a first date with the tailor. The Vulcan Sun Sands seemed a little bit too romantic for a first official date. The relationship Bashir had with Garak had always proven useful, but a little bit concerning from a military perspective. Having a senior officer constantly eating lunches with a Cardassian spy had always rankled Starfleet and he’d had no end of conversations with admirals about the matter.

“Well, the date didn’t end very well, with the promenade closing after all,” the Cardassian frowned. “No, I am concerned that my dear friend is acting rather out of character lately, very bold to ask me for such a unique outing, but would often go distant when we spoke, as if he were somewhere else.”

“Yes,” Sisko sat up fully, having seen the same behaviors just now in the meeting. “I’ll have to keep an eye on him.”

Garak nodded, and Sisko knew there was something else.

“I was also curious, I heard that there was an Orb on the station, a broken Orb…?”

Sisko didn’t speak, just nodded.

“I wanted to assure you, Captain, that its damaged state is not due to any actions taken by Cardassia, the Orb was in that state when the Occupation began,” he leaned forward a little and his expression turned serious. “I knew a scientist who was working on that particular puzzle during the Occupation, and most of them were happy to leave it behind. Strange accidents and unexplained deaths punctuated the whole matter. Someone certainly didn’t want the scientists studying that Orb. The Cardassian government blamed the resistance, of course,” he lifted his head on the last word pointedly.

“You didn’t come across this information by chance, Garak?”

“Of course not, I was making uniforms for the soldiers of this station,” Garak tilted his head, almost puzzled. “Laboratory technicians were regular customers of mine and do tend to gossip. I believe the head Scientist’s name was Amarja. Lovely wardrobe, rather dull outlook on life, I’m afraid. I think you’ll find she still works for the Cardassian Science Ministry.”

“I’ll see if I can get into contact with her,” Sisko nodded his head, and smiled. “Thank you Garak, if that was all?”

“That...was all,” the Cardassian bowed again, and then exited straight out to Ops, and Sisko had the amused satisfaction of hearing Kira’s “Garak? What are you doing in ops?” before the door closed behind him.

He would have to find out what those Cardassian scientists had learned. And that meant, lord almighty, contacting Gul Dukat.

_Not the most pleasant thing to start your day...I’ll talk to Kira first and see what she has to say. But whatever was inhabiting that Orb before we got it, it wasn’t friendly to Cardassian scientists._

* * *

“Bee Stings?”

“Several patients, all of them from the night group that was trying to catch the bees.”

Doctor Bashir strode deeper into the infirmary and Nurse Jabara followed. Bashir was smiling, but with concern in his eyes as he approached the first patient, a crying ensign, who was looking like he had never experienced this much pain before in his entire life.

“You’ll be alright,” he said calmly to the distressed Digan, and took the hypospray the nurse handed him. “This should take care of the pain.”

It was a simple procedure to treat a bee sting, but Doctor Bashir always treated every single patient that came in as if their injury was the most important consideration of his day and today was no exception as he moved from person to person as if he himself were a honey bee going from flower to flower. His care and kindness was held up as an example of how Doctors should be with their patients, to the point where Starfleet almost modelled a holographic doctor after him.

“I have to join Dax in the lab for a shift,” he said to her, during a brief moment where they were done treating the bee stings and the regular patients were starting to trickle in.

“Do you need Girani to come back on duty?” Jabara asked, knowing that Girani had pulled in a very long shift last night and had dealt with mostly bee stings and boredom.

“No, I don’t believe so,” Bashir went over to the refrigeration unit and opened the door. “I’ll still be nearby in case of emergencies. I trust you to handle everything else.”

“Will you be gone very long?”

“Most of the day, really, I have to autopsy the bees for Dax and O’Brien,” he lifted his bee sample from the day before from its place and lifted it up to look up in the light. His face was filled with fascination. She knew that look. The medical researcher in him was starting to take over. “And analyse their DNA. I’ll be running some intelligence tests as well. This sample isn’t a mutant bee, but comparing the two DNA models should tell us if the whole hive had started to undergo DNA changes before they escaped.”

He paused for a moment, a soft cryptic light taking over his eyes.

“Extraordinary, isn’t it? Such a small life,” his eyes sparkled with, for a moment, what she mistook to be a glowing light, but was likely a reflection of light from the test tube. “But so vitally important to Bajor…”

“And causing us so much trouble,” Jabara offered, and Bashir turned to look at her, surprised almost that she was still there.

“We’ve also been ordered to treat them as if they were intelligent life,” he hastily told her. “So if anyone comes in with dead bees from bee stings, spread the word, and send me those samples, the less living bees I have to kill for the research, the better. Hopefully I’ll only need one.”

She followed him back to his desk and he quickly drew up duty changes on a PADD for her, and then left with his own kit and the test tube sample. It was going to be a long day, but with the promenade closed hopefully all they would have to worry about were the usual engineering injuries and bee stings.

* * *

“Could this tube be any tighter?” Nog complained, feeling his shoulders cramp. “I feel like a grub worm in a drinking straw…”

“Sorry cadet, you’re the smallest in the group, even with your ears,” said O’Brien. “Just have a look and see if there are any bees at the end there. And keep your distance if you see them…”

Nog sniffled but didn’t dare show how distressed he was anymore than that. It was very narrow, too narrow to turn around if bees came at him, and there were so many of his compatriots on their team that had been stung so far. The bees seemed to be getting smarter and smarter. He was severely afraid of being stung.

And worse still, the mutant Bajoran honeybees didn’t lose their stingers when they attacked. So none of the little buggers that had hurt the crewmen had suffered for their efforts. Save for one or two that had been smacked. An act they had all been warned to keep to a minimum, they needed to capture as many as possible for study and the bees might be intelligent life forms, which complicated everything.

But at least he had the satisfaction of seeing that the end of this ventilation tube had no bees, just an empty ventilation grid. Or so he thought.

“Uh,” he looked deeper inside, and turned his ears. “I hear something.”

“What do you hear?”

“I think it’s just one,” he could hear the soft sound of tiny insect feet moving on metal. “It must have been trapped in here when we entered. Should I try to get it?”

“Give it a shot, cadet. We need to alter this vent to set up our bee trap and can’t have one getting in the way stinging people.”

Nog pulled his kit around in front of him and opened it to get his sonic driver. Its twin glow was a secondary source of dim light in the vent as he undid the protective screen over the vent blades and peered inside. The bee was sitting on one of the blades, looking like all the other bees they had seen. It clearly wasn’t though, it turned around to look at him.

“Uh, greetings friend,” Nog swallowed nervously. “If you understand me, I mean you no harm,” he put his hands up in the Ferengi submissive greeting. “Um, I just need to bring you back to your friends now,” he held up the tube in his hand and showed it to the creature.

It looked up at him for a moment, and the tube seemed severely too small to capture a moving bee with. Anxiety gripped him, and the bee seemed to be considering for a moment.

_No...it...did it understand me?_

It alarmed him to no end when the bee calmly flew up, and flew right into the tube without putting up any fight.

* * *

“So it understood him?”

“Darndest thing. I wonder if we can just talk to them, ask them to go back to the cargo bay…”

“Maybe,” Dax looked down into the sample container at the bee O’Brien had brought them from the ventilation tube. “Or maybe it knew it was trapped and the sample tube looked like a route of escape.”’

“Either way, isn’t it exciting?” Bashir looked down into the container, grinning from ear to ear. “We may be looking at an entirely new form of life.”

“Well it’s a new form of trouble as far as I’m concerned,” O’Brien said. “We’ll need to set up twenty of these traps on the promenade if we want to catch them all, and I don’t fancy all that work. If we could try talking to it first…”

But the bee turned around and turned its back to them. They tried a few different phrases, simple suggestions, but the bee didn’t seem to respond to their request to go find its friends and bring them to the cargo bay.

“Maybe we should try again later, it might be tired,” Bashir said softly. “I need to begin that autopsy, we’ll leave this one since it showed signs of intelligence.”

“Right, did you get the dead ones I sent you?”

Dax continued to look down into the container as the two men left into the other room, and sighed. She had to work on that Orb, but she put the bee under the DNA analyser first to get its sample, then put it with the others.

She didn’t notice the loose latch on the container until it was already too late.

* * *

Major Kira Nerys felt her chest both tighten and exhale as she entered the Bajoran temple. The Orb of Prophecy and Change was sitting on its dais quietly, all alone now that the temple keepers were confined to the habitat ring. She stopped in front of the container and sighed.

Right now Captain Sisko was on the wire to Cardassia to convince Dukat to let the Cardassian Science Institute work with them to learn more about the Orb. They were keeping the bee situation tight-lipped, hoping that the Dominion and Cardassia would want to cooperate in exchange for any information that could be shared in return. But she really really hoped they didn’t bring the information in person. Having Garak show up in ops was enough Cardassian interaction for her today, thank you very much.

She quietly opened the doors of the Orb case and observed. She really had come in here to pray and to think, not expecting anything more. Seeing the broken Orb had upset her, and what Garak had told Sisko had her completely worried. If the Cardassians didn’t destroy the Orb, then how had it been damaged? Kai Winn was obstinately not saying anything else about the Orb or her task, but the Vedic Assembly admitted that she had told them she was visiting the Fire Caves before she had disappeared. That was a concern.

The Orb of Prophecy and Change was crystalline light and beautiful to behold. Energy and pure passion filled her at the sight of it. It was the blessing of the Prophets on their chosen people and Kira bowed her head and lifted her hands respectfully and gratefully to begin praying.

A shift of energies told her that the Orb had become active, and her vision flashed with the images, the formation of the cryptic messages sent by the Prophets filling her mind.

An image sprang up before her. Bajor. A swirling beautiful Bajor, busy with activity. Bajoran vessels and ships were swarming around the planetary ball like productive honey bees. Commerce and trade ships, she spotted many cargo ships on their route to and fro, the large beautiful Federation saucer ships slipping into view in their ambassadorial dressage, and Andorian, Vulcan, even Klingons from the Klingon Empire, all making their respectful approach. Ferengi trade ships, and scouters, and even Romulan ships, moving almost hesitantly closer.

But a figure was rising above the planetary horizon that she hadn’t noticed before, a figure in gold and white.

Kai Winn. She was smiling. This was her world now. She was in control.

But suddenly the ships changed. The planet changed. The planet was burning with fire, and the ships became warships, thousands of Bajoran interceptors, millions, and they were spinning around the globe like wasps, like angry hornets, buzzing and screaming. And Dominion ships joined them, Cardassian, and Breen, she recognized the patterns, and then the Romulan ships were destroyed, exploding with dark light.

Horror filled Kira, fear, panic, and as Federation and Klingon ships approached war was joined and the two swarms clashed in a violent battle with one another, Bajor against the Federation, allied with Cardassia!

She felt helpless to do anything but watch. This was nothing like she had seen before in a Prophet encounter. Nothing like previous encounters described. This wasn’t a direct communication, this was a vision of the future! A Prophecy!

Kira was momentarily taken aback as Kai Winn, floating in space, was suddenly joined by another figure.

Doctor Bashir. His eyes were glowing with unearthly light and he transformed into a giant honey bee, lighted upon the Kai of Bajor and stabbed her with his stinger over and over again and her blood was the last thing Kira saw as the vision ended and she stumbled back away from the Orb, tears devastating her horror stricken face.

_War...war is coming to Bajor. Kai Winn...and Bashir…?_

She righted herself and got to her feet, slamming her hand on her badge.

“Kira to Doctor Bashir…”

“Bashir here. Major, is everything all right?”

His voice was perplexed. Confused. Kira cursed herself and forced a friendly tone. It had only been a couple hours since the meeting, it was too soon...

“Just wanted an update on how you’re doing…”

“Everything is right as rain,” he said brightly. “I’ve completed the first autopsy and was just about to check on the DNA analysis.”

“Sounds good, I’ll check in with you again later,” she said, and closed the channel.

Feeling foolish she bent down and put her hands on her knees to take a deep breath. In her natural panic over the vision she had immediately jumped to conclusions. She should speak to the Vedics before making any assumptions.

_I had better not tell Kai Winn about my vision, it’ll go to her head. Winn in control of a prosperous and dignified Bajor? But, then again, she is the Kai. The Prophets know what they’re doing…I just have to trust that they have Bajor’s best interests in mind…_

But Bashir had turned into a honey bee and killed the Kai. What did that mean?

_Julian is not a killer...it has to be a metaphor of some kind. And I had better talk to the Vedics sooner rather than later or this will upset me all day. The Prophets really do speak with very cryptic images. I know they use images of familiar people to convey their messages. What could Doctor Bashir’s image mean?_

She knew it was going to bother her all day long and she pointedly went to the empty repliment to get a raktajino before heading for the habitat ring. It was going to be a very long day if she was already starting it off with Cardassian tailors and visions of murder and intergalactic war.

* * *

Sisko was feeling very angry as he approached the lab, a thick feeling, mentally bruised, like he had just wrestled a giant anaconda, heat and adrenaline filling his chest.

Oh he had gotten Dukat’s consent to approach the Cardassian Science Ministry, and had convinced the scientist Garak had named him to send him her research, but they had both put up a considerable fight. Cardassians hated sharing their secrets, and Cardassian scientists wanted to be involved in every aspect of research that involved them in some way. So Rammis Amarja herself was on the way in a Cardassian ship, with her government’s permission, so that she could see the final assembly of the orb with her own eyes and help with the project.

“An opportunity to work together,” Dukat had called it.

Dax was not going to be thrilled. She would accept the help, but she had been working hard to construct the orb lattice and now she had to stop her work so that the Cardassians could participate.

_But it was the only way I could convince them to release the information. Damn Dukat wouldn't take no for an answer, and Weyoun was so happy to give his accent. Any opportunity to step foot on this station they will take._

When he entered the lab it was silent. Dax’s carefully constructed latticework and the Orb pieces she had already put into place in the lattice were sitting on the console, and he took a moment to examine it. She had done a lot of work in just five hours, and he had to hand it to her. The lattice was beautiful, if a little fragile appearing, made up of thousands of tiny synthetic spines that would delicately hold each piece of the Orb and support it by flexing rather than gripping. She had explained that process to him earlier and he had been enthralled. What a delicate piece of engineering, it was almost artistic.

Dax wasn’t here for him to praise just at the moment. But he knew Bashir was probably in the aft room somewhere with his autopsy report waiting, and so he checked there first.

Bashir was alone, and he had been doing a lot of work himself. He could see the consoles were covered in plastic boxes with living bees in them, all in various stages of testing.

“Doctor?” Sisko said. “Where’s Dax?”

“Captain,” he sat up from his microscope and looked at him calmly. “I’m not sure. She was in the other lab…” his face was filled with concern. “I’m afraid the DNA analysis is taking some time.”

“No rush,” said Sisko, and Bashir looked relieved. “What have you learned so far?”

“Well,” he got up and went over to a table with a look of high interest. “The normal Bajoran honey bees usually sting once, and die if they pull out. Removing a live bee from a sting victim is very rare, usually the bee will rip themselves free in a panic, unintentional suicide…” Bashir took a deep breath. “The mutants do not. The stingers are slightly straighter, without barbs, and they sting multiple times...the venom is not toxic to us, but more toxic than the ordinary Bajoran bee, I’m afraid…” he pointed to what looked like a fake dummy hand in a glass box, and there were a few bees moving over the hand, jabbing it repeatedly. “I was curious, so I decided to start by testing the basic honey bee behaviors to see if they differ. I dosed this group with aggression hormones as a test. As you can see, they are relentless in their attack, as bees should be. And when they are given a docile hormone, or smoked, they calm down. As they should do. This group,” he went to another box. “Has been problem solving…”

Sisko saw that this box was a three dimensional labyrinth of turns and twists, of one way baited traps leading to dead ends and unbaited escape routes. The testing bees that weren't already moving through the puzzle were all currently resting in the safe escape rooms. None were in the traps.

“They are recognizing potentially hazardous dead ends very quickly and memorizing the route of the maze. But most importantly,” he pointed to some pulley system inside the maze where the bee would have to push their body through a lever to open a door elsewhere in the maze. “They are working together. Opening the doors and holding them open for one another so that everyone can escape. The bees worked out that one bee would have to remain trapped inside to save the others, and a single bee comes here to open the gate for the others to escape.”

“Oh goodness,” Sisko felt himself smiling almost as widely as Bashir was, looking down at the bees. “Cooperation on a complex task.”

“Bees have always been very cooperative with one another to begin with, but this is incredible. It is an instinct that most honey collecting species already have to put the needs of the hive before the needs of the individual. Cooperation is key to a successful hive. Bees clean one another, feed one another, take care of one another. But it's beautiful in a way to see it so clearly in front of our eyes.”

The Doctor was looking at the box of bees very affectionately, and slowly lifted his head to look at him. The intensity of emotion in his eyes was clear.

“Testing for higher sentience is a little more difficult. I think they may be able to recognize colors and shapes and patterns, and sequences of numbers,” he frowned. “I don’t see any signs of them attempting to communicate with us. Usually bees dance when they form communications, giving one another instructions by making patterns of movements. These bees are not. They must be communicating with one another in another way…”

Sisko nodded. They were about to move onto the autopsy report, when they heard a sudden crash, and a scream, in the next room.

“Dax!”

Bashir was first out of the cramped lab, and they came out to a sight that was horrifying to behold.

Dax was lying on the floor, jerking her body, looking like she was having a seizure. The Bajoran orb fragments were scattered across the console, spilling on the ground along with the lattice she had been constructing, sharp broken plastic splinters scattered across the console and spilling out across the floor. Bashir immediately was at Dax’s side and scanning her.

“She’s been stung, and the symbiont can’t communicate with her due to the allergic reaction. Bashir to Ops, medical emergency, two for emergency transport!”

Sisko took a deep calming breath as they dematerialized, but he was still highly tense as he looked around the lab, shaking with severe concern for his friend. How had the bees gotten loose?

Realizing there was nothing he could do, he sighed, miserably and bent down on the floor to pick up one of the shards. Fear for her was compounded by the sight of all her day’s work just gone in an instant.

Sisko paused. And saw for a moment a reflection in the shard. Red light from somewhere behind. He turned and watched as a fiery form rose from the mass of shards still on the console, until it formed the clear and obvious shape of a person.

It had been waiting for Bashir to leave them, and now it had what it wanted. Him, alone.

“Sisko to security!” he screamed, dodging the first bolt of energy that lashed out at him. “Intruder alert!”

The Pagh-Wraith decided on a different tactic, and launched forward, and Sisko briefly felt his mind filling with fire, his brain boiling with anger, hatred, and absolute and utter loathing, total and complete contempt.

_Get out of my head! OUT!_

It did, to his astonishment, and he came up out of the invasion breathing heavily as the Pagh-Wraith fled. He saw it transform into a fiery hornet shape and shrink and escape through the air ducts, disappearing into the darkness, the lights on every console in the room going out with a sudden power drain, leaving Sisko alone in the blinding dark.

Exhausted, he knelt back down on the ground, put one hand out to the floor to steady himself, shaking from head to toe, and waited for security to arrive.

_Here it is then, the source of all our problems. A Pagh-Wraith on the station...and Dax...Dax...dammit!_

It was all he could do not to scream his frustration to the darkness.


	5. Clarity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day! Wow!!

“How is she?”

Julian Bashir lifted his head, his heart sinking as he looked up at Major Kira, whose face scrunched up with concern. Sisko was on his way, he wasn’t injured, but he was on his way. An alert had put out that there was a Pagh-Wraith loose on the station and now they had to find a way to capture the wraith. Two security officers were posted in the infirmary for their protection. But how did you catch a creature made of fire?

“I was able to stop Jadzia’s allergy attack, and she’s recovering, but the symbiont is still in distress, it won’t join with her,” he felt his stomach twisting. “If it's not responding in twenty four hours we’ll have to call Trill…Something in the venom...” he took a deep breath. “I need a bit more time to analyse this venom, it's different from the other bees. A new mutation.”

“A new one?”

Julian felt his agony and guilt filling him. He had been so careful.

“I’m guessing some bees are at different stages of their mutations than the others. Some have minor changes, and others are still changing. If the venom is any indication, then the bees are transforming on a more hostile evolutionary path…”

Kira crossed her arms, and Julian could almost feel as if she was scrutinizing him. He could almost feel judgement radiating from her. He was to blame, it was all his fault, this was all his fault...

“Do you have any idea how we can stop these mutations?”

“Not in the slightest. Genetic engineering would be my recommendation, but I know where Starfleet would throw that idea,” he looked up at the ceiling. Anything to break her judgmental gaze. “But I could create a virus that alters the genetic structure of the bees, if given approval. I’ll give them all another go over in the lab but the bee that stung her is what we need first so I know which DNA changes to target directly. Otherwise we could destroy every bee on the station, including the bees in stasis.”

Kira shook her head and took a deep breath. Sisko strode into the infirmary and came calmly over to stand beside the Major. Bashir immediately scanned him with a tricorder as he repeated his report.

“Keep at it, I’ll get Girani back on duty and you can take over the lab work. We have a Cardassian scientist coming to the station who was supposed to work with Dax who can take over the Orb assembly, since she was so keen on what Dax was doing when I spoke with her…” Sisko went over to the bed where Dax was lying unconscious and sighed. “We’re all rooting for you Old Man. Don’t you give up on us.”

Julian watched them with growing feelings of guilt in pain. All his careful planning, all his delicate work, all shattered in one heart stopping moment from the arrival of this invader, this evil encroacher, this...this...

_Traitor..._

His chest filled with determination, and he turned back to his console. He would fix this. He could fix this. He had been working so hard, he couldn’t give up now, not with everything so very much in the balance.

_I will fix this, and try to repair the damage I have done, and then...I shall deal with the traitor, personally._

* * *

“I’ve been getting complaints that you were playing very loud music.”

Odo stood in the entrance of Quark’s private quarters, which were stuffed with Ferengi waiters and Dabo girls, around a single dabo table, with a few interested gamblers present. A waiter was in the lounge area, taking orders for drinks from a Koberian trader and the two women he was lounging there with. It may have been a small group of customers, but Quark seemed to be happy with any business at all.

“Constable, just a little bit of entertainment to keep people happy. It's been rather confining during this...quarantine…” Quark held out his hands, gesturing around the room.

“The habitat ring has other places of entertainment, a gymnasium for example, and a spring ball court,” Odo said stiffly, keeping his eyes out to see if any sort of money exchanges of a more illegal type were occurring.

“And why would I want to deprive my customers of a nice cool drink and pleasant conversation, hm?”

There weren’t many people around to really accept a bribe, but the big makeshift sign on the wall outside did indicate that Quark was receiving customers still. Odo would be relentless until then, checking in on Quark at random hours and going over the transporter and replicator logs for this suite.

“Naveen to Odo, we’re detecting an unauthorized access on level six, section three.”

“I’m on my way, and Quark,” Odo turned to give the grinning Ferengi a warning look. “Don’t think you can take advantage of this situation to get away with anything, I’ve got my eyes on you.”

Quark just wiggled his fingers in a goodbye greeting.

_Level six...private storage for the habitat ring. A robbery then. Just what I needed on top of everything else, an opportunistic thief._

* * *

“Captain Sisko,” Rammis Amarja strode through the station buoyantly, her feet making tiny pert clicks on the station deck plating as she bounced in. “I want to thank you for inviting me here to participate in continued research on the Bajoran Orbs.”

“Thank you for arriving so quickly,” Sisko said, feeling his teeth set on edge by the flighty woman. “I’m sorry Dax won’t be able to help you reconstruct the latticework, hopefully she kept a record of how she managed to assemble it.”

He had updated her on the entire situation the moment she had arrived. She seemed not the least put out by the bees, Pagh-Wraith, any of it. She was prim, proper, and severely assured in her abilities as a scientist.

“I am confident that I will be able to recreate her work,” said the pompous woman, her black hair bun bouncing up and down as they quickly walked. “I’m more concerned about the security of the laboratory.”

“Station security is searching for the invader as we speak,” Sisko said, hating how seemingly _familiar_ this woman was with the layout of the station. Garak had said she was posted here during the Occupation after all. “And we have two guards outside the door. They can be inside if you feel safer that way…”

“No need,” she said. “What about this Doctor you mentioned?”

“He should already be in the lab at work on his own experiments…” Sisko assured her, and they both swept into the lab without any warning for the occupants.

Both of them stopped. And stared. And Sisko quickly put himself between Amarja and the room protectively.

“Oh goodness me,” was all she could stay.

Bees. Bees by the thousands. This was the missing hive, all of them, the entire thirty thousand. They were filling this room, swarming around the console, crawling up the walls, filling every inch of the room. But it wasn’t just that they were here that alarmed him, it was what they were _doing_.

Tiny bee limbs were holding onto tiny tiny crystalline plastic spines, and the bees in a dizzying dance of orderly workers were rotating around the column of a growing lacework lattice on top of the console in the center of the room, all of them carefully focused as their tiny forms moved into the lattice and deposited the spines carefully into their appropriate places. Another group of bees was carrying the crystal shards of the Bajoran orb, picking them up off the floor to set on the console beside the lattice, some requiring large numbers of bees to keep the heavy shards aloft. All of them were almost preternaturally quiet, with just that steady rhythmic humming of their wings being the only noise, hovering patiently above the ground and not moving, waiting their turn as they reassembled the lattice, layer by painstaking layer.

“Well...this is an unusual way to construct a synthetic lattice,” said Rammis Amarja, seemingly needing to say something about the situation to break the silence.

“It isn’t my preferred method,” Sisko joked seriously, and looked over to the other lab door, covered in bees. If only he could get in there... Instead he tapped his badge. “Sisko to Doctor Bashir. Bashir, are you in the lab?”

Silence.

“Sisko to Bashir,” fear and concern filled him now, as the last of the pieces of the latticework were coming together now, and the bees without burdens were moving to the walls and moving up to join the masses. “Please respond.”

Nothing.

“Computer, where is Doctor Bashir?”

“Doctor Bashir is in the habitat ring, level four…”

“Sisko to Odo,” Sisko watched as Amarja, totally fearless, moved quietly into the room, and slowly circled the work console, making no effort to interfere with the bees.

The bees seemed not to take notice of her. He had underestimated her skills, she was showing considerable calm in this strange situation and knew not to make any sudden motions around bees.

“Odo here…”

“I want you to locate Doctor Bashir, he’s on deck four of the habitat ring and not responding to communicators. And we have a delicate situation in the lab. I would like increased security at the lab, the bees are all here…”

“All there? You mean, the entire hive?”

“I believe so…”

“I do not think it is necessary to remove them,” said Amarja, as the lattice was completed and the last of the bees rose up to join their brethren mass teeming on the walls. “Clearly they are intelligent. Lets see what else they can do.”

Sisko felt his eyebrows raise up. So she really was a scientist after all.

* * *

“My child, I have already told you everything I know. I fear you are now...questioning my mental facilities. Surely your Doctor could test for such a memory loss…?”

Kira Nerys felt her teeth set on edge. She had come to speak to Vedic Havar and had found the Kai already there. She hadn’t meant to re-ask her about her story, but the Orb vision and the situation with Dax had made her feel even more in need of guidance, and she didn’t want to tell Winn about her vision of Bajor at war.

So here she was, feeling very concerned, and now feeling suspicious that maybe there was something Kai Winn wasn’t telling them.

“Well,” Kira said, mentally coming up with a story. “I only really came because I was worried about your welfare with a Pagh-Wraith on the station.”

The Kai’s eyes lightened, warm and glowing in a strange way that Kira was unaccustomed to seeing from Winn.

“Your concern for my well being is appreciated, but not necessary. I am quite safe here,” she looked around the room with a sigh. “I do hope you’ll forgive me if I seem rude, but I was having a private conversation with the vedic when you…”

Both women were suddenly startled to rising when the door to the quarters opened and in walked Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir, dagger in hand.

His eyes were glowing white, like the fire of a burning hot sun, and there was nothing of sanity there as he advanced towards the Kai.

“Traitor,” he said the words, and his voice was venom. “Violator.”

The Vedic stood to his feet in panic and stumbled away as the man advanced with the dagger, and Kira had only a split second to decide, launching herself between Bashir and Kai Winn, and feeling the impact of the dagger deep inside her stomach. Blood erupted out of her and she saw for a moment, the dawning of horror in his eyes and then sanity and the realization filling him, and Bashir lurched back in horror.

“Kira…? KIRA!”

The door opened again, and Kira slumped onto the ground, barely aware of Odo coming in, a large security detail on his heels, the Kai hastily explaining what happened, and Kira’s own dawning awareness coming into the fore.

_White light in his eyes...white light…_

Consciousness ended and her head lay on the floor and she closed her eyes.

* * *

Sisko did not have enough feet. He did not have enough legs. His chest was almost bursting as he made the Kai’s quarters. Odo gave him a sour look as he arrived, and they entered together, and took in the sight of Kai Winn, her face an inscrutable mask where she sat, and Doctor Bashir, on the floor, two security guards at either side, his hands and torso covered in blood. He looked like he had seen all the horrors of all of his nightmares all at once. Tears were rolling down his face and his mouth was slack, eyes wide and looking at nothing.

It was nothing he could have ever expected from his Chief Medical Officer. The knife was one of Worf’s, kept in storage since he didn’t have room on the Defiant for all his belongings, and it was sitting bloody on the floor, a silent accusation of his Doctor’s murderous action. Only the Doctor might have known where Worf would be keeping such a weapon. But something else was going on here, or Odo would not have kept Bashir waiting here. Sisko wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

“Captain,” said the Kai. “I want to know why this murderer is still here and not in a cell?”

Kai Winn flung a hand out, pointing at Bashir, who flinched back in guilt, eyes clenching tight around the tears as if she had slapped him.

“Major Kira is not dead yet,” said Sisko, feeling the smoldering rage threatening to come up as he turned to address the Doctor. “Julian, talk to me. Why did you do this?”

Bashir said nothing, took a deep choking breath and shook his head, mouth a horrible grimace.

“According to the Vedic you stopped your attack upon seeing Kira fall…” Odo said. “Your target was the Kai, clearly, and we want to know why.”

But Bashir wasn’t forthcoming with information. Sisko might have grabbed and shook the other man, if he were anyone else. But instead he sighed, and turned to look at the Kai.

“Clearly because he hates me,” she said immediately, “He always has hated me. And the Prophets, and all that they stand for.”

“Clearly,” said Odo, and turned to look down at Bashir. “We have found our Pagh-Wraith.”

“I see,” said Sisko, thinking carefully about it. “I think there might be more than one on the station...”

“More than one?” Odo was now troubled by this idea, and looked down at Bashir, who was finally looking up at them, almost pleadingly.

He still seemed unable to talk.

“I don’t think the being that inhabits Bashir was the one that attacked me in the lab, I think it's been inside him this whole time, since the Doctor touched the Kai…” Sisko turned to look at Kai Winn. “Coming out whenever the opportunity arose to make its plans…”

“Oh...my god…” Bashir finally spoke, voice coming out in a gasp. “I was...I was making the bees…changing them...to help Bajor...I thought I was…I…”

Sisko realized it would take time for Bashir to come to grips with whatever it was the Pagh-Wraith had been having him do, and kept focused on the Kai. Odo seemed to sense the situation and took over his interrogation pointedly.

“Kai Winn, Vedic Toral told us when we contacted Bajor that you had been to visit the Fire Caves before coming here,” said the Constable. “I have a feeling you brought some stowaways on board. And you were very much aware of it.”

Kai Winn swallowed and turned to look at the Vedic that was present. He was watching all this, concern and confusion on his face.

“I understand that facing the Pagh-Wraiths in the caves is difficult, and people should not go in alone,” said Sisko, hopefully the Kai would have no choice but speak up to their accusations. “But you went alone. Risking that you might get possessed. They don’t possess people in front of any witnesses.”

“You would have been trained to keep them out of your mind during your tenure as a Vedic, and would have had to prove your ability before becoming Kai,” the Vedic said. “So the only other possibility of their escaping the caves...is that you helped them.”

Kai Winn said nothing at first...and swallowed. She moved over towards the dagger on the floor, looking down at it forlornly.

“The Orb,” she said at last. “I was promised that we would...repair the Orb,” she looked stricken, and Sisko genuinely believed her for a moment. “There was a Prophet in the Orb, they said...trapped, unable to communicate with the Celestial Temple. I was only trying to help the Prophet.”

“The Prophet,” said Sisko. “Inside the broken Orb?”

“Yes…it was in the energy that touched me, and then the Pagh-Wraiths got loose...”

Ah. Sisko nodded, and then looked at Odo, and they both looked over at Bashir.

Doctor Bashir looked up at them in startlement.

“You said you were changing the bees, Doctor,” said Odo, his changeling mind clearly coming to the same conclusion that Sisko had. “What was the Prophet telling you to do to change the bees?”

“Prophet? Wait...but…” Bashir was startled. “The bees...I was…I thought,” he looked at his hands.

“The Prophet inside the broken Orb must have gone from the Orb, into Kai Winn and then into you. You were doing something to the bees...for Bajor…?”

Turning their backs was a mistake. Everyone was startled when Bashir suddenly jumped to his feet in alarm and the two security officers, their eyes startled with warning, reached for their weapons at their belts.

Sisko turned just as Kai Winn, her eyes blazing red launched upon him with the klingon dagger raised above her head, all of murder in her eyes.

Odo quickly formed a barrier ball around the knife, pulling the Kai away and lifting her above him, the Kai thrashing and snarling, kicking his liquid body uselessly with her feet, and behind him Sisko was aware of two security guards, now struggling to hold onto Bashir’s body as he likewise thrashed, the white energy being in him glowing with power, trying to get at his opponent.

Bashir was genetically engineered and won the fight. No contest. The security officers went down and Sisko grabbed onto the man.

“At ease, Doctor!” Sisko shouted, and Bashir was suddenly snapped back into obedience, stopping in his forward motion, still shaking bodily from head to toe. “It's a good thing your mind is so strong,” he said. “The Prophet can’t fully control you.”

“It’s controlled me enough,” Bashir said with a choke. “It’s all been ruined. I gave the bees all the tools they would need to survive, but then I went too far. I gave them intelligence. It was a mistake, I didn’t know what I was doing. And I was...so lonely. But intelligence meant independence and they wanted to do things their own way. And I let them just keep changing, so amazed by the changes I was seeing, all the beauty of those lives, all in my hands, and now Dax, and Kira...I’m so sorry.”

Doctor Bashir broke down into sobs again and Sisko felt his own sympathy for the man returning. Bashir had been given the aid and support of a Prophet to play with life, and life had turned out to be a bigger problem than a solution.

The Pagh-Wraith must have realized by now its attack was futile, for suddenly Kai Winn shrieked, howling in pain as the red Pagh-Wraith leapt out of her mouth, erupting like a fiery demon, and then fled towards the nearest exit; the air vents. Odo lowered Winn to the ground and then pursued the wraith, his liquid form oozing into the shape of a snake and striking through the vent, disappearing in an instant.

“Sisko to Girani, I want a nurse to look over the Kai, I think she’ll be her normal self now,” he turned to look at her as the Vedic carefully helped the grateful woman to her feet. “I’m sure she has many questions she’ll have to answer for the Vedic Assembly.”

“Indeed,” said the Vedic. “Conspiring with the Pagh-Wraiths to _help_ the Prophet in the Orb? I doubt the Pagh-Wraiths wanted to help the Prophet, and you of all people should have known this.”

“What did they offer you?” Sisko asked, feeling as he understood completely now. “Advancement? Control over the planet? I can well imagine what your own reward for this work would have been.”

Sisko was done with the Kai. He didn’t even want to look at her. He turned to look back at Doctor Bashir.

“Doctor...We now know there are in fact _two_ Pagh-Wraiths loose on the station...what were you, and the Prophet inside you, doing with the bees?”

But again Doctor Bashir was gone and the white light was there in his eyes, no longer fiery, but now focused, and that look of deep wisdom was there, that intense intelligence and aloof distance that he recognized now as being characteristic of the Prophets. He should have known, should have recognized it, he had seen it before when Bashir had gone distant, talking about the bees.

“It is necessary,” said the Prophet, a soft smile curving Bashir’s mouth. “For Bajor.”

* * *

Dax felt strange. Unfocused. Uncertain. Her eyes opened and she started.

“It's all right, its Doctor Girani,” said the woman standing over her. “You seem to be recovering now...Girani to Sisko, Dax is awake. The treatment was successful.”

Dax felt her head was a little light, and she was having trouble with remembering who she was, Jadzia or Curzon or else one of the others, and where she was, which was likely an infirmary of some kind, but she knew Girani, so she felt safe. The symbiont was feeling sluggish and she knew that was a sign that they had been drugged with a narcotic.

“What...happened to me?”

“A bee sting,” said Girani. “Doctor Bashir came up with a cure. I do believe you won’t have to worry about insect bites causing this situation for you ever again…”

Dax shook her head and shook it again. Her temples were aching. But Bashir was the name that caused her to focus on Jadzia’s memories the most. Yes, that was who she was.

“What did he do?”

“The anti-venom he came up with worked well, so we just had to wait for Dax to rejoin with you...are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Dax shook her head one more time. “I feel like I have bees in my brain. Dax’s past hosts are all trying to assert themselves.”

O’Brien stumbled into the infirmary, wincing and holding his bleeding hand, clearly he was injured, and Girani left her side to go help him with his injury. A spanner had shorted in his hand. This happened more often than it should on this station, Dax once again wondered if maybe it wasn’t worth it trying to use Federation tools to repair Cardassian technology that was only partially compatible.

“How’s Kira?” he said, as she patiently worked.

“I put her into stasis for now. We don’t have a big enough team of doctors to operate on her injury just yet…we need Doctor Bashir.”

“What injury, what’s wrong with Kira?” Dax tried to get to her feet, and stumbled, another wave of confusion washing over her.

“Oh you should stay sitting for a moment,” said Girani, coming back over to her.

“Maybe I should bring her up to speed,” said the Chief helpfully. “While you fix me up?”

As Girani worked, O’Brien told her everything, and Dax mentally worked things through in her mind. If the lab was filled with bees, and she was no longer allergic, as Girani had suggested...then did that mean…?

* * *

“I’m not sure I understand you,” said Sisko, as the Bashir-Prophet moved into the center of the room, now looking down at the red stain on the carpet where the dagger had been. The security officer had already taken it safely away.

“For Bajor, it is necessary,” said Bashir, and turned. “Life begins very small. And very small forms of life decide the future of every other life on Bajor. It is necessary to have them.”

“The bees,” Sisko said, and looked down. “Why Bashir? You were inhabiting Kai Winn, but you chose Bashir.”

“His mind was capable,” said the Prophet. “His mind understands life, and is learning very quickly how to make it.”

Sisko thought about this quietly. What was the Prophet teaching Doctor Bashir about life that a Doctor wouldn’t already know? Genetic engineering and things of that nature?

It had also occurred to him that this Prophet, that had been cut off from the Celestial Temple for a long time, was showing too much aggression towards the Pagh-Wraiths. It was clearly willing to destroy any target that was inhabited by the Wraith, regardless of the host. Maybe this indicated that Pagh-Wraiths were more vulnerable when in a physical host. But he would have to be cautious with allowing the Prophet free movement on the station. A complication.

“What will happen to Bajor if we let Bashir finish his work on the bees?”

“Bajor will be healed,” said the Prophet. “Life will return to the planet.”

Sisko sighed a little. Starfleet would not be happy with genetically engineered bees being introduced into Bajor’s ecosystem. He also knew that the Bajorans would be fine with anything the Prophet wanted.

“How soon will the bees need to be introduced before the danger is irreversible?”

The Prophet almost seemed annoyed by him now, and frowned.

“The Sisko asks many questions about the future. But time is linear here. What has not happened yet will not happen now.”

This wasn’t going to go anywhere. He was startled suddenly by Odo returning from the ventilation system.

“I lost track of it,” said Odo in frustration. “It could be anywhere.”

“And every time the Pagh-Wraith and the Prophet are in the same room they could start fighting,” said Sisko, looking at Bashir firmly. “We need Doctor Bashir in the infirmary, and back working in the lab, and not have to worry that he might suddenly attack someone else on the station.”

“The Doctor is necessary,” said the Prophet, and nodded.

It was a strange moment of confusion for all of them, and Bashir’s eyes took on momentary clarity and then the Prophet was clearly gone again and the Doctor was back.

“C-Captain?” he put his hand to his head, and immediately regretted it. His hands were still covered in blood.

“Kira needs a second doctor’s hands,” said Sisko. “I’m putting you back on duty, under active guard. The rest of the security team will be dispatched searching for the Pagh-Wraiths. But I’m guessing they won’t be found. What I need to know is, can you finish what you started?”

Julian Bashir took a deep breath. He looked out at the window and nodded.

“This generation will stay hyper intelligent, but future generations will have the normal bee mind. I can already see in my head what I need to do to repair the damage.”

“Start with Major Kira. I left Amarja working on assembling the Orb, and she seems to be working well with the bees.”

“She should be,” said Bashir, smiling that warm smile he was known for, and Sisko felt relieved that hopefully the man was getting back to himself. “They are slightly empathic, and probably will sense whether someone is afraid or threatening towards them. I wonder why Dax was stung…”

“I would think that the Pagh-Wraith must have tried to inhabit Dax as she was working on assembling the Orb, and the bees would have sensed its hostility…” Odo said sensibly. “I’ll go make sure Amarja is well protected in the lab, but I don’t think we have anything to fear. I remember she was quite capable of protecting herself back during the Occupation.”

“Did you know her Constable?” said Sisko, as he exited, following Odo and Bashir slowly out of the door.

“Well, I don’t know for certain, but I was almost entirely convinced that she had been sent to the station by the Obsidian Order to observe Gul Dukat.”

Ah. So that was how Garak had met the redoubtable woman. Sisko couldn’t help it. He laughed, and both Odo and Bashir looked at him as if he was insane.

At this point, with everything that had happened, he wouldn’t be surprised if his mind was beginning to slip, just a little.


	6. Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, another chapter. Maybe I will get this done in time for Halloween. Cross your fingers folks.

“Well now, what have we here?”

Rammis Amarja lifted her head in curiosity. Alnan Tael had stopped in his scanning over the wall of bees, smiling in that way that Bajorans were known for, that squinting of the eyes and the slight upturn of the ridged nose. The quiet humming of the bees around them, the sudden lifting of Corban Raffa’s head at his console, indicated that Alnan was very fortunate with his discovery, and Amarja went over to him to see what he was pointing to.

“Is that…?”

“The Queen…” he said softly.

“Oh well spotted,” she was impressed. Highly impressed. “Very good eyes…”

“It becomes almost second nature in beekeeping,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps we could convince her to go into a more protective location of the hive?”

The two Bajoran Apiarists had brought with them a hive, a multi-tiered wooden structure of slats that had a bark facade. But so far the bees had not been willing to enter it. With their Queen inside however...

Alnan reached out to scoop up the Queen unconcernedly, with such experienced and gentle fingers that Amarja was certain that they could never harm so much as a wing tip of a bee by chance. It seemed that the bees were more than cooperative, when the intent in their minds was not fear or anger, but helpful and maybe, a little hopeful?

Almost like clockwork, a mass of bees followed their Queen, and Amarja watched in amazement as Alnan moved quietly through the room in the direction of the hive, a swarm of bees just casually covering him in a blanket. Corban lifted the lid and Alnan gently deposited the Queen inside her new nest. The feeling of satisfaction was clearly filling the room, from them, and from the bees. It must have felt safer for them in the familiar safety of an enclosed space.

Amarja returned to the latticework and considered. The crystals were suspended in place, but she was fusing them according to Dax’s careful instructions, and something wasn’t right. She needed the Trill in here with her.

“I’m going to have to talk to Dax first before I continue,” she said out loud, and realized the two beekeepers weren’t really paying attention to the work she was doing.

She would have been disappointed, but she didn’t have time. The door opened and a new person entered the room.

The two Bajorans stood to their feet, caution in their faces, and both of them formed a barrier between the now teeming bee house and the rest of the room. Amarja held her repose, knowing that any hostility would likely stir them up into attacking the intruder, not them.

But it was hard to keep neutral when an old friend was pointing a phaser at your stomach.

“Rammis,” the slight rise of the head, the ice blue eyes, which were glowing slightly golden under the light of the station, and that soft smile. “It has been far too long.”

“Elim Garak,” she put a hand on her hip. “You have gained weight, haven’t you?”

His eyes took on a momentary embarrassed look of insult.

“I don’t suppose you expect me to say that you haven’t changed a bit? That there isn’t a bit more padding added to your garments in places…”

“Elim you certainly haven’t changed,” she felt her concern for the phaser was well justified. “Did you come here to threaten me with a weapon and trade insults with me or did you just want to talk about old times?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I was hoping you would help me, but I was concerned you might not have a favorable opinion after all these years,” he lowered the phaser amicably and smiled. “I did just give your career a considerable boost by coming here.”

“They’ll kill you Garak,” said Amarja, well aware that the two Bajorans were very intently watching them both. “Even with cosmetic surgery they would discover you eventually.”

“Perhaps…” he approached her now, and as he got closer, she was a bit concerned. His eyes were still showing a tinge of yellow and orange around the edges of the white. Was he ill? “I would certainly think that I am more clever than that…”

“You must have people waiting for you to join them,” Amarja guessed, and she was delighted. “Don’t tell me you are planning to help the Rebellion against the Dominion?”

“Well someone has to do something, though as a tailor I fear I am severely inadequate to the task.”

Amarja wanted to roll her eyes, but she knew he would never outright state that he was in the Order. All that training Tain had put him through could not be overthrown so easily. Still, she knew he was only being deceptive this way because the Bajorans were there. They had never needed secrecy between them. They had never needed clothing...but that was another matter.

“I suppose you were planning to blackmail me into bringing you home…?”

“No...no...I was more hoping for the aid of a good friend,” he sighed. “I hardly have anybody who trusts me on Cardassia. I have so much I can still offer, you understand?”

That strange orange light was in his eyes, and she considered his words…

“Come to the shuttle bay when we depart, and I’ll see where I can put you,” she said. “But how you get onto the planet is up to you…”

“Thank you, I already have a plan in mind,” he bowed his head, and turned, and looked briefly at the beehive and the two pale Bajorans. “Good day to you both.”

He left her there feeling like she had just signed a deal for her soul. She turned back to her lattice, and put her palms face down on the flat surface of the console. The bees must have sensed her mood, for they began to land on her hair, and light on her neck and hummed in her ear, attempting to comfort her. 

“Are you all right?”

She lifted her head to smile at Alnan and nodded a little, shaking loose a couple bees.

“It’s just hard to see a friend so changed...so desperate…”

The man nodded, holding her eyes for a moment in concern, before leaving her back to her work. Amarja straightened her blouse a little, all the bees leaving her now, but the feeling of being unsatisfied with the outcome of that conversation still lingered.

_Elim, you will use everyone around you to get what you want. Do you still have room in your heart for another? Did I ever mean anything to you? Are people just tools in your spy kit to be used and discarded as needed?_

She would have married him in a moment if he had asked. She was getting too old to remain lonely. But today he had only wanted a ride from her back to the life he had once known.

She left the outer lab and entered the second room so the Bajorans wouldn’t see her bitter, bitter tears.

* * *

Alnan Tael felt that he had to tell someone. He had to say something. The Cardassians had engaged in a secret agreement to smuggle the tailor to Cardassia. Yes, it meant fighting the Dominion...yes they seemed to be friends and Amarja had not seemed too threatened.

But the feeling from the tailor himself had been one that was quite dangerous. The bees had been frightened until he had left, hiding in the hive until he had gone, and then coming out to comfort the quiet Amarja.

Alnan did not know what Garak would have done if Amarja had refused him. Amarja was now in the other room, likely upset, and Alnan felt it was probably better to move the bees into that room for Doctor Bashir. But disturbing them again at this point would be unlikely to go over well.

“Alnan to O’Brien,” he tapped his badge. “We need a few strong men to help us lift this hive and carry it into the next room.”

“Sure, but wouldn’t you want me to transport it?”

“No, the bees are already in it and all over the room, it's smarter to not disturb them by a sudden shift in locations. If I had been smarter I’d have put the hive in that room to begin with.”

“I hear you, a couple of strapping young ensigns coming your way.”

Alnan heard Corban chuckle and shared a smile with him. Their human friend had a wonderful good humor and had been a joy to work with, despite all the setbacks.

“We’re in good shape,” Corban said. “These bees all seem to have good health, already starting to produce comb…”

“We’ll be up to our necks in baby bees before we know it…”

He shouldn’t have said anything. His words must have been a curse, for above their heads a ventilation grate burst open suddenly and from out of the darkness within came the darkest nightmares of every Bajoran’s waking fears.

The fiery being wasted no time, smashing into the wooden hive and breaking it into so much kindling. And thirty thousand angry volatile bees rose up from the midst and swirled in a cyclone around the creature, trying to sting.

It had another target in mind. Corban barely had time to scream before his body was crashed upon by the sea of bees as the Pagh-Wraith invaded him. He was too weak to fight it off and he went down screaming and thrashing.

Alnan could not move, frozen in horror as the bees buried his friend completely, the angry writhing fire of the Pagh-Wraith burning in their vision.

A door opened nearby and Amarja came running out. To their credit Cardassians were quick thinking on their feet. She grabbed Alnan and banged on her combadge.

“Amarja to Ops, emergency, seal this deck and beam us both anywhere but here,”

Alnan had just a moment to watch in horror as the Pagh-Wraith vacated the purple and red broken body of his friend before the transporter beam took him. Where he landed, he wasn’t sure, but he fell to his knees immediately, unable to speak through his tears.

It was all gone.

* * *

“How did this happen?” Sisko demanded, looking as angry as everyone felt. “The lab was surrounded by force fields, it should have kept it out!”

“Something must have helped it,” O’Brien was sitting in ops, watching the security monitor relay the images from the lab. “Or maybe this Pagh-Wraith is stronger than our force fields. We’ll have to do some testing, but how do you get a Pagh-Wraith to stay still so we can test it?”

The still lifeless form of the Apiarist in the lab was a misery to them. Transporting the body now would potentially transport the Pagh-Wraith too so they had to leave it behind. And the bees were everywhere in there, a mass of teeming angry aggressive beasties.

“I managed to tag the Queen before it happened,” Alnan said, seemingly coming back to himself from where he had been sitting on the floor. The man had started crying the moment that he had been transported to ops, it was hard to see someone so utterly broken in an instant. Losing a friend was never easy, but he was now picking himself up rather well. “Can we run a scan for her from here and see if she’s alive?”

“I’ll have to try and boost the signal a little, but it’ll be slow work. What number is she?”

“What else? 001-A,” he said it almost with amusement on his tear stained face. “Without her the hive might die. There were no larvae left to make another Queen…”

Sisko moved aside so the Apiarist could see the screen and O’Brien quickly punched the number into the scanners. Alnan leaned over him, almost apologetically to watch the scanner work. It would be slow, as the bees were all actively moving and the hive was a smashed pile of rubble and they would have to scan it all meticulously for all those tiny tracking tags.

“We still have the two beehives wrapped in styrolite,” O’Brien pointed out. “I suppose Bashir could start his work over again with them in a pinch…”

“No, we need to try and preserve some bees to send to the Federation. What if they don’t approve Bashir’s changes?” he seemed open to the idea that Bashir’s changes, despite being Prophet inspired, might not be what was best for Bajor in the long term.

“In the meantime, we need to decide what we’re going to do about the Prophet and Pagh-Wraiths,” said Sisko. “And find out just what exactly the Pagh-Wraiths are after. Their activity looks like chaos, but they seem to be working strategically in some way. Attacking very specific people...”

Dax had finally recovered enough to come to ops and she was sitting now beside Amarja, looking concerned. So far the monitors didn’t show that the lattice or the Orb under construction was at all damaged, but the Pagh-Wraith was still in there somewhere.

“The Pagh-Wraith would have destroyed the Orb by now if it wanted to,” she said. “My guess is they wanted Kai Winn to recreate the Orb so they themselves could take control of it.”

“Troubling…” Amarja said. “But at least we have that one Wraith trapped.”

“Maybe, or maybe not.”

“If it takes a physical host, it could reprogram a panel,” O’Brien said, as the scan continued to run. “But what sort of form?”

“A bee,” said Sisko, as if realization were dawning. “It must have possessed one of the bees in order to get access to the lab. Their minds are weak enough…but they are intelligent enough to know which buttons to press when directed.”

“The Queen,” said Alnan, looking stricken. “If it was smart it would have claimed the Queen. And controlled the entire hive…”

“The scan shows the Queen is still in there,” O’Brien confirmed. “Can’t get an accurate location, but she’s in there. Well now, this is a pickle.”

“Bashir to ops,” the soft voice of Julian Bashir filtered through the gloom of their discussion. “I’m going to begin the procedure for Major Kira now, since Girani still has some energy. As soon as Defiant arrives have Doctor Blaise sent down to relieve her…”

“Understood Doctor,” said Sisko, and turned to look at everyone. “We need some extra security around the Doctor, and around that lab, just having the Prophet and the Pagh-Wraith in the same place would mean trouble and even more killing.”

“And there’s a third entity we don’t know about,” said Dax, looking unhappy. “Captain, I know the Bajorans very much respect the Prophets, but we need to consider the damage it has caused here…”

“All in the name of helping all Bajorans, I am certain,” Alnan stood to his feet devoutly.

Bajorans were very rare to be persuaded that the Prophets were entities as prone to failure and selfish purposes as any other.

“Aren’t the Pagh-Wraiths considered to be former Prophets who betrayed the Prophets?” said Dax. “How do we know this Prophet won’t do the same if desperate enough?”

Alnan looked like he might be sick from the very idea but Sisko looked like he was severely considering it for he crossed the deck pointedly.

“Which is why we need to get that Orb repaired as quickly as possible. I suspect that the longer a Prophet spends time in our world, the more vulnerable they are to, well, the same temptations the Pagh-Wraiths must have experienced for them to want to live in our dimension instead of their own.”

“This Prophet will have been separated for a long time,” said Amarja, looking up matter of factly. “The Bajoran scientists we first approached to study the Orb said that it had been shattered almost a thousand years ago.”

And there it was. O’Brien looked up at the ceiling and frowned.

“If this Prophet was cut off from his fellows for so long, he has no idea what the rest of them have planned for Bajor. He is making up his own plans,” O’Brien said. “We need to help him...get home. Or his plans could be the wrong ones without him intending it...”

“I think we can transport the lattice and shards out of the lab into ops to keep working on it,” Dax said. “But we risk lowering the shields we have up around the lab…”

Sisko considered for a moment, and looking around at them all, decided.

“Do it.”

“All right everyone,” O’Brien quickly tapped everything up on his console and took a deep breath. “Hold onto your hats.”

* * *

Julian Bashir looked down at the open cavity in front of him, and took a deep breath. Girani was working patiently, the two of them making careful stitches as the nurses kept the area clear of blood and kept the patient’s vitals monitored. At every stitch he felt himself more and more relieved and more assured of his patient’s survival.

He hadn’t been sure how he was going to feel, operating on a person with a gut injury he himself had caused. But he had been able to put himself to the side as he had before in past surgeries and get to work.

But it was much harder to stay focused, with the Prophet hovering in the back of his mind, ready to merge with his consciousness when necessary to continue their work with the bees. The bees were all the Prophet could think about.

 _Be still,_ he said, as much to the Prophet as himself. _Stay focused._

One benefit of sharing his body with this being was the extra energy he seemed to have in spades. He wasn’t going to collapse at the operating table.

Girani was working on repairing a damaged artery, Julian quickly working away on ligations to prevent bleeding around an area he was going to start suturing, when he heard it.

Julian lifted his ear, but kept his eyes down.

“Did you hear that?” said Jabara looking up anxiously.

“I heard it,” Girani ascented. “Keep on task.”

But it was hard to ignore. The sound of phaser fire, and struggling bodies, and the two security officers in the surgical suite with them went to the door and sealed it, locking it shut. Julian blocked everything out, the hasty conversations of people talking over their communicators, all the security on the station alerted and on the way. He had to complete this suturing job, then Kira could survive with only one surgeon working. Then two hands wouldn’t be needed. He carefully made the joins, his surgical tool moving like a tiny pair of luminous crab pincers grasping and connecting the tissue, and Girani moved the dermal regenerator slowly over the joins he made to seal them under a layer of artificial skin. As good as new; this method was good at keeping minor injuries closed, but for a larger wound like this real tissue would have to grow and take the place of the artificial membrane over the course of several days. Kira would need to rest. He knew she would hate that.

His ears picked out the sound of the door reprogramming itself, the two security guards taking defensive fighting stances as the intruder was now breaking through, and where the hell was security?

“Suction,” Julian spoke and gave instructions on autopilot, the raw wound in Kira’s stomach coming together and closing just as the sound of the door swishing open hit his ears, and the sound of a phaser flashing reached him.

The blazing red and orange form of Garak was standing in the doorway, phaser in hand, eyes blazing with fire, skin damp and slick from the blood of those he had killed.

“Come with me…”

The voice was not ordering him. It was pleading. It was asking him.

It was with two voices that Julian was speaking. His own, and the Prophet's, and the operating table melted away in an instant, and two old friends, as old as the stars, were standing there now.

“Come with _me_...come home.”

* * *

Commander Worf pounded almost uselessly on the infirmary doors, and Odo quickly berated him.

“Garak has the whole station reprogrammed just for this, I doubt pure physical might is going to work here.”

 _Defiant_ was docked now, and Doctor Blaise was sitting quietly to the side, waiting for entry into the infirmary as security and engineering worked to get the shielding down. Transporting in would be impossible until then.

“It might, actually,” said O’Brien, to Odo’s surprise. “Transparent aluminum can take all you can give, but not everything,” he meant the small windows on the door portal that you could peer into. “If we could break those, Odo can get through.”

“Stand back,” Worf pulled out his phaser and set it to its highest and pointed it to the glass, aiming precisely and firing.

Odo joined him with his own phaser, and so did two other guards. It took all four of them but Odo could feel the give as the window gave out.

A hole. That was all, a tiny hole, no bigger than a balled fist, for all their work, but it was enough, and Odo began to ooze through it.

Chaos was what he found inside. Bodies on the ground. The security team was a mess of phaser wounds and writhing forms, but some were still alive.

“We need medical staff in here,” Odo said after disabling the lock on the door. “I’m going to find Garak…”

Odo found his way straight into surgery and stopped.

The Prophet and the Pagh-Wraith were looking at each other. Not moving. It was obvious that one had just spoken, and the other was waiting to respond. Nearby, at the surgical table, Girani was still working anxiously on her patient, and she didn’t even look up at his own arrival.

“Please…” the Prophet!Bashir pled. “Please, we can go home together.”

“You have been sleeping too long,” said Wraith!Garak pointedly. “We have been gone a long time. We have made many changes.”

“But no time passes for us, all the harm you have caused can be undone.”

Odo considered this, in surprise. Outside of the Celestial Temple, the Prophets were subject to the same linear time restrictions. And could be cast out of the temple for their works of evil. But they would have to communicate with a linear time to know what was going to happen, perhaps to see the future, and affect the past. Did this Prophet know how this conversation was going to end? He seemed desperate to change the outcome, putting both hands out.

“No time has passed yes, but nothing ever happens,” said Wraith!Garak. “Nothing is anything like linear time. It is so malleable, so clever, so open to tiny changes and control. So many malleable people. So many worlds that could be ours.”

“Too many changes, too fast, is too dangerous,” said Prophet!Bashir. “As beautiful as linear time is, as wonderful as it is to be a part of, it is volatile. You want too much, too fast. Patience is...a virtue.”

Odo started. That was Bashir speaking. A human phrase he knew they used often. The Wraith seemed to sense this for it flamed up, energy rising. It had decided.

At once twin bolts of red fire struck at Bashir and Odo realized he was not enough to get Garak under control. That fire would only destroy him.

“Well what are you waiting for?” Odo said to the Prophet. “Fight him!”

“I would kill him,” said the Prophet, or was it Bashir? Tears rolling down their shared face as flames began melting away the synthetic material of the orange surgical gown. “I would lose him forever…”

And then suddenly, the Wraith stopped, and seemed to falter, and Odo knew, in a moment, when the tailor had finally regained control for Garak had fallen on his knees gasping.

“Doc...tor…” he gasped, taken completely aback, and afraid.

Julian Bashir’s face was stricken and he went over and put his arms around the tailor, and held him and cried, his face desperate and miserable. Neither Prophet nor Wraith was willing to leave their host, and neither was willing to surrender, and the minds of their hosts, now too conflicted, would not be forced to destroy the other, had fought the urge and then succeeded.

A stalemate. Odo considered and retrieved Garak’s phaser from his hand before the tailor had time to react. Girani seemed to be working still, and Odo was relieved to see Blaise had finally slipped into the room, taken in the scene, and moved to the operating table resolutely. It wasn’t hard to decide what Odo was going to do after that.

“Both of you are coming with me, straight to the brig.”


	7. Heartbreathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh, another part, hopefully you'll get some tomorrow for a Halloween treat. But if not, here's something to go with your candy corn and caramel apples. :3

“Well that worked not one bit,” O’Brien said miserably, looking at the mess of the lab with a shake of his head. “O’Brien to Sisko, we have a problem here.”

“We have several problems here Chief, but we’ll start with yours.”

“The lab security was tampered with, probably by Garak before going to the infirmary. The bees, and the Pagh-Wraith, all gone. Somewhere.”

“Damn. That is a problem.”

O’Brien was used to Sisko swearing, from time to time. He knew the man could cuss up a storm when he was in a more serious rage. He lifted his head in momentary concern when he heard the sound of chanting; Alnan Tael had entered after O’Brien and was now bent down over his friend’s body, tears pouring down his cheeks as he performed the Bajoran last rites. All around them was the lab, subjected to massive attacks of fire and energy as the Pagh-Wraith had attempted its escape. Hundreds of dead bees littered the floor, but not enough to make up for the mass that was now missing.

“We need to come up with a way to trap Wraiths but still transport people and things,” said Sisko, and it sounded like he was moving. “We have people with energy beings inside them, doing terrible things out of their control. It's time to put our foot down!”

“I’m guessing the Prophet is included in this plan,” O’Brien said quietly, hoping that Alnan wouldn’t be upset.

He was too engaged in his grief to even notice.

“We’ll have to see, Odo has Garak and Bashir both in jail, and it looks like the entities inhabiting them are unconcerned about leaving at the moment.”

Concern for his own friend filled him for a moment and he sighed.

“I’ll powwow with Dax and see what we can set up in the security center for you.”

“Quickly chief. The Wraith in Garak is calm right now, but who knows when he’ll act out again.”

O’Brien muttered an oath as the channel closed and turned to walk over to Alnan, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. The eyes that looked up at him were the eyes of many different humanoid races, even if the nose was a little different. A bit of care was needed here.

“Hey, you tell us what you need to give your friend a proper place to rest until he can go back to Bajor, and we’ll get it set up first thing. Everything else can wait for after that.”

Alnan nodded, eyes damp but calm and full with gratitude.

Respecting Bajoran culture had been something that they hadn’t been doing much of since the two Apiarists had arrived. O’Brien decided he would remember to show a little more respect, even if the Prophet and the Pagh-Wraith had given him days more work to do reprogramming the station.

People were what was important. If they couldn’t respect the people of Bajor, their beliefs, their way of life, then they had no business even being here.

_A little respect and an open mind goes a long way…_

* * *

Silence. The blipping of security monitors, the hum of electronics in the walls. The soft breathing of the guards, and the prisoners in the other cells. The cold of metal walls and barren surfaces and dull minds. And in the midst of this one bright mind, one burning fount, watching, considering, in the cell across from his. He took a deep unsteady breath, knowing there would be very little time before the Sisko came, and it could not stand, this uncertainty still simmering between them.

Barriers of energy between them, this time designed for their forms of flesh. He respected these barriers and what they meant. But would _he_?

Of course, voices mattered not, and his mind searched out to find the hot burning mind of the Other in this room. He was met with an immediate and scathing reply.

_Remember? Remember what you did to us?_

His fiery counterpart turned away from him, uncaring, pain flashing. Feelings of abandonment came into him from the other, shame, humiliation, fury, memory of a fiery eyed Bajoran smashing his prison of crystal in vengeance. Many years had passed, and he was far more powerful now than he had ever been. So were _they_.

Misery, pain, fear, now they were with him. He had abandoned and left his friend behind, all alone. Vulnerable. Vulnerable to the _Traitor_. It was painful to remember.

_For Bajor. Bajor is necessary._

Could he not see? Could he not understand? Was life not beautiful even in its smallest and tiniest shapes? Was life not worth waiting for?

If his companion felt even slightly stirred he showed no sign. In isolation he seemed unwilling to touch even the energy of his mind. In fear of reaching out, and touching the purity of him and his host.

_My Child._

Surely this was how small life started. So small, and yet so significant. He felt the Doctor’s mental misery, his pain, his need to reach out to his own companion as well. To save him from his conflicted state. So much like them, but linear, confined in this linear space.

But rescue was not forthcoming for either of them. A swishing sound of a door, and his counterpart sat up, alert, and the Changeling came striding in with multiple guards in a vanguard around him, with the Sisko following close behind in his wake.

It was time.

* * *

Sisko looked contemplatively at the man sitting quietly in his cell. The distance of Julian Bashir’s eyes, the alien posture of sitting perfectly in place, neither relaxed nor tense, told him the Prophet was in control. A stillness. This was the word he had been looking for to describe how a person seemed when under their possession. Still, and very calm. Unmoving.

“Answers,” Sisko put his hands on his hips. “Are needed for very important questions I have to ask you. Because there is now a Pagh-Wraith and thousands of bees once again loose on the station somewhere. And the question is; why do you and the Pagh-Wraiths fight whenever you are in the same room, when it's clear you are capable of doing otherwise?” he looked over his shoulder briefly. Garak was unmoving, and the word he would use to describe how Garak looked now was ‘focused’. “Clearly there’s a reason why you stopped fighting to talk? Odo felt you were trying to stop the Wraith from doing something. What is it?”

It was a good place to start.

“He cannot open the gate…” the Prophet said softly, only Bashir’s mouth moved, and it was very uncanny. “It is necessary to open the gate to go through.”

“The wormhole?”

The Prophet shook his head. Sisko thought carefully, and worked it out in his mind. The Prophets used the Orbs to communicate with Bajor. Not the wormhole itself.

“The Orbs then,” Sisko turned to look at Odo, who nodded.

“If they had the Orb repaired, then they would have the gate, but they still need a key to open it, this key,” Odo looked at Bashir, who frowned slightly.

“Others cannot.”

Sisko was stunned at this. This implied that the Prophets had a ranking hierarchy. This Prophet was the one that could open the Orbs up to allow travel between Bajor and the Celestial temple. A Gatekeeper of sorts. But there was something else.

“You asked him to come with you,” said Odo pointedly. “So clearly you are willing to let him go through the gate.”

“Only for some, not for others. Not for the Kosst Amojan,” said the Prophet, and he seemed tense at the name. “For the Kosst is barred forever. But for him, I would,” he looked over at Garak.

It was clear. It was clear there. It was not from the still unmoving face of Bashir that this feeling of deep need was showing in the usually distant eyes of the Prophet. The glowing white eyes were now touched with a need. A longing. Loneliness.

“You’ve been alone in the broken Orb for a very long time,” said Sisko softly, and the Prophet looked at him and the distance returned. “What happened to the Orb?”

The Prophet seemed to be considering. But it was Garak who spoke up.

“He fled from Kosst Amojan,” said the Pagh-Wraith, snarling with fire and rage. “And I was left alone.”

Sisko felt a strange sympathy for the creature filling him. The hurt of betrayal was in the lines and tension around the orange yellow eyes, but the very real sense of pain and rage was there, it was deep and deeply bitter.

“Kosst Amojan is barred forever…and all who were barred with him were consumed,” the Prophet spoke again, and Sisko suddenly realized exactly what had happened, all the pieces falling into place and forming an image in his mind of how it had all gone down.

“A thousand years ago you closed the gate to prevent Kosst Amojan from getting into the Celestial Temple, but the Prophets still outside the temple could not follow you, and Kosst Amojan corrupted them too. They were left to fight alone against this dangerous enemy. I would feel betrayed too.”

It was the first time Sisko had ever seen it. He wondered if anyone else had ever witnessed this. Bashir’s face did not change, his expression was as blank as it had been from the moment he had come in, but two silver blue tears of energy fell from the eyes of the Prophet, forming soft solid shards that landed with small clinks on the cell floor.

The Tears of the Prophets.

_Oh my god...this is why the Bajorans call the Orbs tears._

“You will need this to repair it…” the Prophet looked down at the shards and continued, “I will not open the gate for Kosst Amojan. But _he_ will not come with me now…” he looked over at the Pagh-Wraith possessed Cardassian in grief and Sisko turned to look at Garak and considered.

The look of pure revulsion was clear.

“You hear him?” said Sisko to the Pagh-Wraith fiercely. “He wants you, he wants you to come home with him, he has no hatred for you, none. He didn’t mean for you to suffer.”

“It matters nothing,” said the Wraith, teeth set on edge. “We will return and get vengeance.”

“Vengeance for who?” said Sisko, finally feeling frustrated. “They want you to come home. Vengeance for this Kosst Amojan maybe? You are fighting his battles, you are being used.”

“The Emissary speaks of matters he does not understand…”

“But I do,” said Sisko. “You are afraid to go home because of Kosst Amojan, and what he means to do if he can get into the Celestial Temple. He wants to destroy it, doesn’t he? To force the Prophets to live in linear time.”

The Wraith made a gasping sound, as if startled by the words being spoken, and the light dimmed and the feeling of tense energy was broken and it was Garak who looked up and looked around him in confusion.

“What...what happened to me?”

“Well, for one thing, you made a deal with the devil,” said Sisko. “What did the Wraith offer you to convince you to let it inhabit your head? You wouldn’t just let any strange being have access to your secrets.”

“What else? Cardassia,” said Odo. “Alnan told me Garak arranged for a ride to Cardassia with Rammis Amarja.”

“Well perhaps, but it wasn’t an offer so much as a hostage situation,” said Garak pointedly. “I realized not soon after making the deal that I could not unmake it,” his voice was rather bitter. “The being would leave my mind and then would come back whenever it wished and I could not push it out, no matter how hard I tried. I have a very strong mind, but once he was in, there was no preventing him from returning.”

“Like a vampire,” Sisko said.

“Excuse me?” said Garak, clearly not getting the reference.

“Old Earth mythology holds that there were blood drinking creatures called ‘vampires’, who could only enter the house of a human being if they were invited in. Once in though, you had to purify your house with religious symbols and rituals to cast them out again.”

“What do you do to purify a Cardassian tailor of a Pagh-Wraith invasion?” Odo said snidely.

It was the Prophet in the other cell that answered, and his voice was almost entirely too light, too delighted, to be a coincidence.

“Procreation.”

* * *

Odo had to admit, Garak handled his reaction well.

“I will not be pushed into a physical relationship by two incorpereal entities having a temper tantrum!”

“But you will let an incorporeal entity invade your head at some feign chance of returning to your home world,” Odo said. “Where you would be executed immediately.”

“Well that was a more practical consideration,” Garak said, rubbing his arms. “My world is being occupied by the Dominion, the Rebellion needs someone with the knowledge, connections and resources I have available to aid them. I am more useful to them there than here, regardless of the risks.”

“You’ve been very useful to us,” Sisko said, looking more concerned than amused. “And I think you underestimate Starfleet’s willingness to help the Rebellion. We want a peaceful Cardassia without the Dominion, if we can manage it.”

“Let's focus for now on the Pagh-Wraith,” said Odo. “For as long as it inhabits your body, it can attack Doctor Bashir,” he looked over at the other cell. “And any other person on this station. Including Cardassians. Like your friend Amarja you held a phaser to.”

The tailor seemed to be thinking this over, but there was a warning and wary look in his eyes, like a cornered snake.

“I’m guessing a holographic partner would not work for the purposes of purification…” Garak said reluctantly.

“I believe the idea is to form a new pact with a new being, in this case, a lover, that would symbolize a commitment to end your...other contract.” Odo looked over now at the cell with the Prophet in it, where Bashir was sitting there, looking unconcerned. “I don’t suppose you have a partner already in mind who might help you with this?”

“Awkward,” said Sisko, who looked first at Bashir, then back at Garak.

“Very, awkward,” said Garak, affronted. “To be discussing this even publicly is very much not done in certain traditional circles…”

“Oh for goodness sake Garak!” it caused them all, even Odo, to jump, when Bashir suddenly stood to his feet with a look of exasperation on his face. “I get it, I understand, only a fiance or a _whore_ can sleep with a Cardassian male outside of marriage in ‘certain traditional circles’,” he said this so coarsely that it made Sisko’s mouth fall open. “I severely hope you are much more open minded than that, human relationships are different and my people’s culture is important too. Physical touch, even small touch, is an evolutionary trait of human beings. It's not something I can help. I want to touch you, I need to. It's more than attraction, its instinct. And I _know_ ,” he paced his cell. “Cardassians are reptilian, you reproduce only when the _environment_ is correct, regardless of physical contact, that much I _understand_ , I’m a Doctor, I understand the physical differences. I just wish you would trust me! I’m not going to throw you away or betray you!”

Sisko raised both eyebrows to look at Odo, and Odo rolled his own eyes with a huff.

“If you two can’t get yourselves sorted out, we’ll have to find another way to deal with the Pagh-Wraith,” said Odo, who crossed his arms.

“We need the Prophet to complete its work with the bees first,” Sisko stated. “Bajor needs to be a strong and prosperous agricultural world that can stand on its own two feet. Without pollinators their environment will become arid desert. We can’t have Bashir and the bees come under attack every time some progress is made.”

“Garak will have to stay here while Bashir works with the bees,” said Odo. “If we can locate them again. But I doubt this cell is a proper location for ‘procreation’.”

Garak opened his mouth in protest but then decidedly closed it. Odo felt that this was very very wise. Sisko may not have been showing it yet, but he knew the volcano had woken and was bound to erupt at any moment if pushed.

“We need a space that is enclosed, easy to seal against energy escape, that a person can be transported in and out of,” Bashir sat back on his cell cot, genetically engineered mind now working it over, the prickly issue of the ‘act’ that Garak would have to perform to evict the Wraith from his mind put aside for the time being.

“I’ll have O’Brien recreate the lab shields to levels that we know were able to hold the other Wraith in place,” Sisko said. “We just need a location.”

“A holosuite?” said Odo, ignoring Garak’s affronted look. “Doctor? Is this idea agreeable to you?”

Bashir looked at Garak across the void and Odo watched the strange interplay of emotions between them, Garak’s eyes taking on a momentary concern.

“I still have that program,” said Bashir softly. “Not quite what I intended it for…”

“What did you intend it for if not for sex?” Garak said bluntly, as coursely as the Doctor had used the word ‘whore’.

Bashir looked down at his hands, but he didn’t say a word.

What else could be said? He was as transparent as glass. And the look on his face was just as shattered.

* * *

“You’re joking?” Dax looked up at Sisko in horror.

“It doesn’t have to happen yet, or at all, Bashir still needs to fix his bees,” Sisko set the two Orb tear pieces that the Prophet had created onto the workstation, and Amarja lifted them immediately.

“Ah, this was what was wrong, not all the pieces were here to complete the Orb.”

“The Prophet was very clear though,” Sisko continued, almost ignoring the woman now. “Procreation. Not just copulation. So I don’t know if it will even work…”

“I see,” Dax looked as if she was thinking. “We can alter a holodeck to be able to hold the Pagh-Wraith, but if it doesn’t work, Garak is stuck.”

“It will be holding the Prophet too,” said Sisko, taking a deep breath. “Julian would be vulnerable to the Wraith’s attacks again…how to get the Prophet out after transporting him and Garak?”

Silence. Amarja looked over the Orb, and inserted the new pieces in the right places.

“You could leave the Prophet and Wraith in the holodeck together,” she said. “It sounds as if they just need time to sort out their differences to convince the Wraith to go back home. No ‘procreation’ would then be needed.”

Dax looked at the flighty woman, thoroughly disconcerted. Amarja was a strange example of a person who was a complete conflict of opposite character traits. Curious, open minded and accepting but at the same time firmly resolute and self-confident. But she often had good ideas as a result.

“Any Orb is a gate,” said Dax. “There’s the Orb down in the temple that hasn’t been harmed. With a Prophet already inside it. Couldn’t the Prophet just return home that way if that was the only problem?” 

Sisko considered that and nodded.

“I believe the Prophet isn’t going to go home until his friend’s mind is changed about going home. I’m rather concerned that the Prophet will fall prey to this Kosst Amojan...” Sisko said the name with a growl and Dax knew what that meant. Sisko had identified the clearest unmistakable enemy on this battlefield and was focusing on it. “We don’t know where it is. Is it still in the core? Or did it escape to the habitat ring?”

“If it's free, we’ll need some sort of bait to get it back inside…” Dax ventured. “The Orb and the Prophet together seem like good temptations…”

“I don’t want to do anything else that may endanger the Doctor. But what choice do we have?” he sighed. “I’ll be in my office.”

Dax watched him go and tapped another pattern into her console. The remaining work on the Orb was going to take very little time. But her anxiety was up, anticipating attack at any moment.

The Wraiths wanted the Orb constructed so they could use it themselves. Would the Orb be enough of a bait to lure the missing Pagh-Wraith out of hiding? Or was there something even more important and powerful that was currently keeping it at bay?

* * *

Kai Winn strode purposely towards the door of the rented shuttle, her heart pounding, resolution and determination in every step. Her two Bajoran helpers were moving as silently as possible behind her, the two of them moving as quickly as could be allowed considering their cargo and their secretive escape.

“I’m certainly glad we could get a shuttle,” Kai Winn said, as she entered the shuttle ahead of them, the Orb of Prophecy and Change being carried carefully on a bier between them. “One Orb on this station is more than enough. This Orb can return to Bajor.”

The shuttle was a little confined with her, the two Bajorans, and the Orb, and she just had to wait patiently for their hired pilot to return from the back. But she didn’t mind, she was feeling rather relieved to be going back to Bajor and getting away from all this mess. She would find a way to stay clear of any trouble, if she spoke to the Assembly before that Vedic Haval...

It was certainly a surprise to her when the back compartment of the shuttle opened and thousands of vicious and utterly brutal bees came shooting out and immediately rushed at her.

She gave a cry of horror and fell back as the hoard slammed into her chest and pain filled her. It became her existence, her living nightmare, unending and unrelenting. Fear and panic gripped her, horror, anguish, the stabbing pain struck her again and again and formed a fiery rope inside her. A groan of torment escaped her, blood bubbled from her nose and throat and the hoard of vicious creatures erupted from her eyes.

A laughing creature emerged from the back of the shuttle. Her torment could not end. She was a dead thing that could not die. She could not escape, it was laughing at her, it had made a deal with her and now she was its own. It’s plaything.

It was not the bartender Quark that smiled at her, but a horrid combination of them both, jagged Ferengi teeth showing nothing but greed and eyes showing nothing but fire and lust as he looked at the Orb case. The two Bajorans servants stood there, almost unmoving, and their eyes were glowing, completely enthralled.

“Well what do we have here?” said Kosst Amojan, and he studied the case of the Orb of Prophecy carefully, a hand to his mouth in consideration, another to his earlobe, as if he were considering the Orb’s value on the black market. “I guess today is my lucky day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the horror and scary is going to be ramping up just a little bit more now, I may have teased a bit before, but you know, its a Halloween. Still lots of romance though. I can't not write gushy romance, it seems.


	8. Fatherhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: I said this was a horror story and was meant for Halloween and it was. More gore is now coming your way.

Julian Bashir shivered as he entered the science lab. The engineering team was at work in here dealing with the removal of the Apiarists body, a Vedic now chanting over the remains. Hundreds of dead bees in every nook and cranny cast a dark shadow on his soul. Chief O’Brien’s team would start in here sealing the lab from any possible physical access by bees, which would mean a mobile oxygen generator unit, but it would mean no chance of any invasion from the air vents. They would seal every nook and cranny. But what good was it if Julian had no bees to work with? The Pagh-Wraith had taken the Queen, and the mass of the remaining bees in the hive, and left the remains lying everywhere for him to see.

Corban Jaffa’s body was a damning accusation.

_You wanted to play god, and you got it. Death is a part of life. Now there’s very real death here…this is your fault._

Chief O’Brien must have spotted him, for the sound his voice giving instructions had stopped and he was rising to his feet. All the engineers turned to watch him.

Sisko was somewhere behind him, silent and unmoving, standing in the door. Julian found the center of the room, and just surveyed the devastation and fell to his knees. A few engineers gave startled sounds.

Vedic Haval had gotten up from next to the Apiarists body, and now he came over to put a hand on Julian’s shoulder.

“Why are you crying?”

He was in fact crying. He felt the dampness on his cheeks, the silent streaming of his pain down his chin.

“I caused this,” said Julian, looking bereft. “Corban, Dax, Kira, my bees, all of this…”

“Well now, I was certain that I heard it was not a person, but a Pagh-Wraith attacking the lab,” Haval lifted his head, almost curiously. “I was certain I saw a Pagh-Wraith controlling the Kai. Was it not?”

Julian looked up at him.

“I gave the bees intelligence, and let them run free on the station, when they should have been left alone. I wanted to have all that power the Prophet offered me. I wanted to be worshipped, and loved, and adored.”

“Perhaps, but obtaining love is a goal we all possess,” Haval got down to his level. “The Prophets chose you for a purpose, and that purpose is not always understood. We are looking at the farm from far away in the mountains, not seeing the fields from the farmer’s eyes. How are we, travellers on the path, to understand what the Farmer has waiting for us at our arrival?”

Julian shivered, and looked around at the consoles, even here there were dead bees. He thought about the bees and considered. What was the path he was travelling on meant to lead to? His wagon had a broken wheel, and a missing horse, but he still had legs to walk with.

“I only need an empty hive, and a few living bees…” he got up and went into the other lab.

To his utter surprise the bees in the boxes had been untouched, and were still alive. Sisko came in with him, the Vedic and Alnan Tael both following him and Julian looked down into the boxes.

“I need to pick one to become the Queen,” said Julian with a sigh.

“A gentle Queen is needed,” said Alnan immediately. “The Queen’s attitude decides how the rest of the hive will develop.”

“She’s the gentlest, I’d say,” Julian pointed to the bee he had separated out of the labyrinth trap. “And the most patient.”

“Why do you say that?” Sisko said, looking down into the box.

“She always waited for the other bees to go through the gates first to make sure they all passed through. She was also one of the ones who would hold the gate trap open so everyone else could escape.”

“How will you do this?” said Alnan. “She is no longer a larvae. And we have no royal jelly.”

“I need no royal jelly,” said Julian, leaning in to open the case, and reaching a tentative finger in towards the bee.

She seemed to consider him and rubbed her legs over her antenna and eyes in a cleaning motion before crawling onto his finger.

A momentary tingle in his finger, so familiar, and easy, and too easy, way too easy, and she perked her head.

_The spark of life..._

A light seemed to swell within her, and she swelled in size and he held her up to the light so that the startled Alnan could see that she was in fact now a Queen bee. Vedic Haval began to pray, which rather annoyed him. Sisko bent his head up as well, in curiosity, a look of pure delight in his face. Julian could only feel tense, as if he had cheated by doing this, and was intensely focused on making sure her DNA was how it should be. He couldn’t find any faults when he _looked_ at her the way the Prophet had taught him to, but he was always going to be uncertain now about the changes he had made. And he not only had to manipulate a lifeform here, he had to impregnate it too. This was different then genetic mutation.

He opened the other cases carefully, and sighed. No drones. Damn. He was almost certain he’d had one, but it may have been one of the ones he’d dissected. Well, he could improvise one from a female, but he still felt like he was cheating by changing their sex. Artificial insemination would have to do. And how easy it was! Just a thought, and done, a fully fertile Queen, giving him a look of distress he probably deserved to be on the receiving end of. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten a female in trouble this way, Major Kira would attest to that.

“She needs a safe place to lay her eggs…”

Alnan quickly tapped his combadge.

“O’Brien, can we have the now empty hive transported in here?”

“We’re still figuring out how we’re going to repair it. But is that where you _really_ want it?”

“Actually,” said Julian, as the bees in the boxes all swarmed onto his hand to join the new Queen. “We need a bee box in a place the other bees can get to.”

“What?” Sisko seemed startled by this.

“Supersedure,” said Alnan, nodding his approval. “The old hive will accept the younger Queen over an older Queen, moreso if the older Queen is damaged in some way…”

“That…” said Julian, as the last few bees joined the tiny ball of buzzing creatures on his hand. “Is for the Prophet and the Pagh-Wraith to battle out.”

“Let's not put the hive in the cargo bay, we don’t want to risk the hives in stasis, and we have that area very well sealed,” Sisko followed Julian out to the main lab, where the engineers were now trying to reassemble the damaged bee boxes.

Alnan laughingly went over to help them and Sisko put a hand on Julian’s shoulder.

“This is risky…”

“We can’t have that hive of killer bees running amok. It's up to the Prophet to take that weapon out of his enemy’s hands. I can only give him a catalyst to start from. And this Queen’s offspring won’t have the advanced intellect,” Julian felt his breath hitch and he looked away.

“You loved them…” said Sisko. “It's nothing to be ashamed of. Parents love their children. And sometimes make dumb mistakes because of it. Take it from one who knows.”

“Well,” Julian looked down at the bodies of his ‘children’ littered across the floor and sighed. “This was quite a large mistake to make. I have an entire planet dependent on the outcome of this...and who knows if this is what the Prophet intended?”

Sisko seemed to think about it.

“How much freedom has he given you to use his powers to create these lifeforms?”

Ah. Julian lifted the bee ball, and was delighted by the sound of their hearts beating, blessed and soothed by the humming of their wings.

“Total freedom. He hasn’t given me much more than instructions on how to use the power, I have full creative control over what I want to do with it. And Captain,” he took a deep breath. “Life is a lot less complicated than you may think. It's almost too painfully easy to make a new life...I don’t feel any different than a scientist with petri dishes, or maybe a chef in the kitchen, ready to create something new. It just feels natural.”

Sisko’s eyes widened and Julian was happy to hand off the burden of the Queen to Alnan and the Engineering team. He didn’t want to attract the attention of the Pagh-Wraith with his presence. He had thrown a new Queen into the mix, and it was now up to the Prophet to deal with Kosst Amojan and the stolen swarm.

* * *

“Well, it's assembled…” said Dax, looking at the Orb on the console in dismay. “But it needs the lattice to stay together. Without the Prophet’s energy to lace it together it's just a bunch of pretty shards of crystal.”

“Well then we have to wait,” said Amarja, getting to her feet. “Why don’t we get something to eat? I know the station is quarantined, but I thought we could find an empty place on the Promenade…?”

Dax smiled, and activated the shield generators around the Orb. Nobody would be interfering with their work this time.

“Quark’s is probably empty, we can sit and talk, he won’t mind me using his replicator. He’ll try to charge me for it later but I’ll remind him that he owes me from our last Tongo game.”

“Oh wonderful! I haven’t been to Quark’s in so long…”

Ah. She had forgotten this woman had been here during the Occupation. Still, the Cardassian clearly wanted to socialize in some way and she couldn’t hold her past against her. The work she had done with the Orbs during the Occupation had been of great use to them today. 

She also found that Amarja could be very eccentric in her behaviours, focused on her work at one moment and a flitty social butterfly the next. In fact, Dax had noted that Cardassians did tend to be this way, constantly socializing, but becoming very focused when their duty called them. Garak was _very_ much like this.

“I don’t know that it's changed much,” said Dax. “I’d like to see what is being done on the Promenade for the trap…”

Not much actually. They came out to the Promenade and found it mostly silent. Odo was busy securing the habitat and docking rings and had been complaining about Quark, giving him the runaround on the station somewhere, and probably involved in some smuggling deal because they had shut down all the shuttle ports. Dax felt a momentary sympathy for the long suffering Odo, knowing that the clever constable would catch his quarry in the end.

She chattered with Amarja quietly as they walked, the spooky silence and darkness doing nothing to belay her fears. Memory of the swarm that had destroyed the lab came back to her, and she mentally braced herself. She wasn’t allergic to the bees anymore, Julian had dealt with that.

He had done too much. She found herself looking up at the second level walkway, imagining Julian standing there, just reaching out to the bee, and deciding, in that moment, to start changing its DNA. Like a…

“God!”

Amarja’s comment confused her. Cardassians didn’t have gods, and for a moment she thought the woman had been reading her mind. But she quickly realized that it was actually a Cardassian curse that Amarja had spoken, ‘gad’, which hadn’t translated, and meant approximately the equivalent of a waste extraction unit blowing up everywhere. A big smelly nasty evil mess.

Quark’s was a horrific scene, one out of a nightmare she could not have ever imagined. Three Dabo girls were hanging from the ceiling, in a circle around a Dabo table, their intestines loose and falling onto the playing field of the game machine as the Dabo wheel spun unceasingly, rivitules of their blood flowing down in a river between the chips and strips of stacked latinum. Nearby, Ferengi waiters were seated around a long banquet table, their own bloody heads on their plates, looking like mannequins leaned over in deathly repose, blood slowly dribbling from the stumps of their necks. And spread out across the table was a spectacular feast; Kai Winn, dead, her body still lurching. The source of her motion was obvious, her flesh was pockmarked with thousands of holes, and thousands of blood stained honey bees, slick and red, moved around inside of her, laying out cells of waxy honeycomb in her ribcage. At her head, on the table, was the Orb of Prophecy and Change.

Dax spotted Quark behind the bar, unconcernedly tapping his account PADD, eyes glowing orange and a look of greedy delight on his face. She grabbed Amarja’s arm to pull her slowly out of the bar.

Amarja’s mouth was moving open and shut silently. Lunch was most certainly over now. Dax hit her combadge.

“Dax to Odo,” she said, unsure of how she found her voice. “I found Quark...and the bees.”

“And the bees?”

“And the Pagh-Wraith...and Kai Winn…and the Orb...” her own trauma must have carried over in her voice, and Odo quickly put two and two together.

“Don’t move, and don’t provoke them. I’m on my way.”

* * *

Sisko paced the floor of Bajoran cafe, where they had decided would be the best place on the promenade to meet and regroup, around the corner from Quark’s, out of hearing of Ferengi ears, and out of sight. His crew was assembled around him sitting in booths, faces painted in various shades of deep concern and fear. Sisko had related to everyone what Dax and Amarja had seen inside Quark’s, Odo had chosen to seal the area and shields now surrounded the entire bar, shields strong enough to keep the bees, and hopefully, the Pagh-Wraith, inside. They were now waiting for the Constable’s return.

Unfortunately, that meant the holodeck was out of the question, for now, for getting Garak free of his Pagh-Wraith. Sisko was less concerned with that than he was for the eight dead waiters and three dead Dabo girls, and the Kai. Oh Lord the Kai.

“I can sneak in and out easily enough,” said a voice, and Sisko noted Odo’s return with a sigh of relief as the Constable reformed next to him. “Either the Wraith is ignoring me, or is entirely distracted by getting his ‘dinner party’ perfectly right,” Odo said that last bit in a gruff snarl.

“Kosst Amojan is recreating his temple here that once stood in Haranam,” said Vedic Haval. “A place of blood worship and death rituals. Our history records of terrible cults who once worshipped the Wraith, and left entire houses with the dead in display.”

The Vedic had voluntarily come out to join their fight after dealing with the Apiarists death rites. Sisko was glad to have someone familiar with the Bajoran religious texts on hand to help him understand this situation. A few deputies were going around the habitat taking a census to make sure everyone was where they should be, and people were now confined to their quarters for their safety. Sisko was determined not to let another person die on this station.

“Any thoughts?”

“He’s playing with us,” said Bashir, looking stricken and revulsed. “And mocking me…”

 _Mocking you Doctor?_ Sisko knew the Doctor was feeling very guilty about everything, but he was taking too much of the guilt onto his own heart.

“I’d call it more of a challenge, since he seems in no rush to escape Quark’s,” Dax said, recovering herself. “How can we trap a creature like this?”

“Well we can transport it to a cell, much like Garak is in, if this being can be held captive the same way,” Odo looked confident. “I feel as if these beings can come and go anywhere without their physical host, but vulnerable when in a physical body.”

“Maybe, but they can return to a body they previously inhabited,” Sisko thought about it. “Was the Pagh-Wraith damaged when it left the Kai? That’s the question.”

“I think we’re overlooking the biggest problem,” said O’Brien. “That thing has an Orb and wants to get inside. We risk the Pagh-Wraith transporting with it if we try transporting the Orb...and we risk Quark’s life.”

Suddenly Odo and everyone on the promenade realized.

“Oh course,” said Sisko. “He’s using the bees to hold Quark hostage.”

“Hostage?”

“To force us to bring the Prophet to him to open the gate…” said Bashir, stricken. “It's impossible. The Prophet is too afraid of this Kosst Amojan.”

“I need another idea…” Sisko said. “One that doesn’t put Quark at risk.”

“I have one…”

The voice, unexpected, came to them from the door. A few ensigns stood aside to offer Kira Nerys their chairs, which she declined with a hand wave.

“You should be in bed,” said Bashir firmly. “You’re only being held together by an artificial graft.”

“I’m fine...Sisko,” she put her hands on her hips. “The Prophets cast Kosst Amojan out of the temple in the first place. If the other Wraith is still trapped in security, then we have an even match. A fair fight. One Prophet, and one Pah-Wraith.”

“You propose they fight it out?” said Odo, looking highly intrigued.

“I will not risk anymore lives,” said Sisko.

“Beside which, it is not time for the Reckoning,” said Haval. “The signs have not come…”

“The Reckoning?” said Dax.

“When a Prophet will fight the Pagh Wraith at the Celestial temple,” said Haval. “And peace will reign forever on Bajor. None of the signs have been shown.”

“Maybe not,” said Kira. “But the texts say only a Prophet can defeat a Pagh-wraith. Anything we do would come up short, and just send the Wraith off to become someone else’s problem.”

“Our sensor readings show that while the energy levels seem to be on par between Julian’s Prophet and Garak’s Pagh-Wraith, the being Kosst Amojan is a lot stronger…” Dax said. “About double the strength. And while there are ways we could...use the station to remove all of them,” she looked around pointedly at the Bajoran officers. “I don’t know what damage that could do to the Prophet.”

Sisko considered that for a last course of action, and turned to look at Julian. His face was somewhat blank, and that distant look filled his eyes, and Sisko knew.

“Courage is what I lacked once,” said the Prophet, and every Bajoran gasped, almost in time, at the non-living quality of the energy in that voice. “I need a more powerful vessel.”

Sisko was almost unsurprised when the white energy of the Prophet erupted from the eyes and mouth of the startled medical officer and engulfed him entirely.

And now Sisko was being asked, pointedly, for permission.

_‘A battle...a battle…only the battle I ask of you…the Kosst Amojan cannot create life, only destroy it. I can do both. I can retake the swarm.’_

_I guess I can deal with that. I didn’t want to put any of my officers at risk, so if there’s going to be a battle, I’d better be the one fighting._

Benjamin Sisko felt startled that he was still feeling like he used to, except there was this powerful creature in the back of his mind, urging him to be strong and remember his mother.

_My mother?_

An image flashed to him of a woman’s face, in the sand, calling to him...

_Sarah. She was necessary…_

Life...strangely enough, was exactly as the Doctor had said it would be.

Easy.

* * *

“Rammis? May I ask?”

The two security officers had been amused when she entered, wanting to see Garak, and now he looked up at her, feeling a strange masculine adrenaline filling him. She had dressed rather nicely for her visit, and her hair was down. He had always loved her hair.

“Sisko said procreation was needed to free you,” she said softly, looking quietly around the room. “And procreation is something a scientist understands…you need to create a child, a commitment.”

Garak was momentarily horrified, and then remembered that there was nothing left for him to complain about here. She had been his lover for so many years before his exile had cut off their engagement plans short.

“Why?”

His soft one spoken word, and she looked up at him, all of hell and heaven in her eyes.

“If I’m going to spend my days alone, I’d like some company. If I can’t have a husband, well I am owed something…Elim.”

Garak frowned a little, and the security officer reluctantly let her into the cell. He rose to look her in the eyes. He could feel the temperature in the cell was steadily going up, and she had painted her scales in shades of blue, showing her intentions.

“I told chief O’Brien to raise the temperature here, and let Odo know what I was planning. Right now they’re all making plans for Sisko’s confrontation with the Wraith…”

“Isn’t it dangerous to let this Wraith loose now?” he said, and scanned her beautiful form with his eyes, looking for weapons of course.

“No, I think they have the security center well contained…” Amarja came closer to him, and he paused.

“Did they scan you for weapons?”

A Bajoran officer nearby snickered and Garak balked. He wasn’t opposed to doing this with an audience. He did not, however, prefer to have external input on the matter.

“You don’t trust me?”

“Never,” said Garak, putting his hands on her shoulders and feeling a primal stirring.

The Wraith wanted out now, but wanted him to pay the price for not doing as it wanted him to. There would most certainly be a child from this. His child. A new generation of Garaks.

“There’s hope for you yet,” she said, and whispered into his ear. “I want to leave you something to remember me by...”

“Was I not going with you?” said Garak softly, feeling his throat tighten.

“I would rather you lived,” she said. “Live here, with your Doctor...and I’ll help your people on Cardassia…we can work together.”

“Risky,” he smiled wryly at her, and felt her back loosen as he loosened her dress.

“It would be worth it if you can come home one day, without having to hide…”

Nothing more really needed to be said between them. He only hoped the Doctor would understand.

Rammis Amarja he needed for this moment. But Julian Bashir he wanted forever. And that meant a firm commitment to cut off this former tie to his past before he could move forward into the future. One child was a small price to pay for the sorrow he had caused this woman. And would leave him a legacy. A child on Cardassia. It was a gift he had never hoped that he would be blessed with, and one he wished he could share with Julian Bashir.

In the back of his wicked little mind, the Pagh-Wraith smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope it isn't too gorey. Big climactic battles coming up soon!


	9. Life, Uh...Finds A Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is. The final part. I wanted to write so much more, might one day write a sequel, but I wanted to finish it and decided to cut down all the ideas I had. I need to focus on one project at a time and I have so many other ideas for stories, I really only wanted to write something for Halloween and that was weeks ago.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Silence. Quark’s bar was a battlefield Captain Sisko had never thought that he would ever have to face. The bodies and bloodshed were almost too much and he stopped for a moment to get his bearing, and get back his nerves. Behind him Odo was slowly seeping his way secretly into the bar, but Sisko schooled his features to keep the possessed Ferengi unaware of his presence. As far as Sisko knew, Pagh-Wraiths and Prophets were both unable to read the minds of those who were not directly in contact with them. Hopefully Odo would go unnoticed. His job was to contain the Orb, hopefully remove it. But Sisko was uncertain how they would help Quark.

“Ah, Captain Sisko, welcome to...my bar!” Quark said, and the absolute fear and relief at seeing him was clearly obvious.

Also obvious was the fact that the Pagh-Wraith wasn’t currently inhabiting the Ferengi. Where was it?

“Quark,” said Sisko. “A jack daniels…? For old times sake?” 

Sisko had decided being friendly would be better than aggressive. Who knew where the crazy Pagh-Wraith was hiding, and who knew where the swarm was? But he knew one thing.

There were a lot of rotting bodies in this room. Kai Winn’s body was draped over with a fabric tablecloth that was vibrating, possibly the missing swarm was still using her as a temporary hive. The dead waiters around her were a horrific sight. He couldn’t look at the dabo girls with their insides on the outside. It was carnage like this that he wanted to prevent from happening again. But where was the Pagh-Wraith? Under the tablecloth amongst the bees? Or was Quark still silently being inhabited?

The shields around the bars sprung into life and Sisko took a tense breath. So now the whole section was sealed, and there would be no leaving for any of them until Sisko gave the order to remove them. Sisko would not let a Pagh-Wraith inhabit him, but if he died, the Wraith was to be contained, those were his orders, no matter what.

“So, uh, here’s your drink,” Quark set the drink on the counter and Sisko took it, though he knew he wasn’t going to sip, no way to know if the wraith had poisoned all the food in this place. “Um, no charge today, on the house, we’re celebrating here…”

The empty bar wasn’t going to be empty for long. Two teams of officers with full beekeeping gear, Starfleet issue, were on the second level, in case the Pagh-Wraith tried to escape with the bees. All of them were armed ready to destroy the killer bees if the Prophet couldn’t destroy the Queen.

And this was his task.

“What are you celebrating?” Sisko put the drink down on the tabletop, and looked into Quark’s worried eyes.

No red there, the eyes were severely blue gray. No Pagh-Wraith there.

“Oh gimme a minute, I wrote it down,” Quark picked up his PADD, looking very severely scared, and Sisko felt, before he saw, the two Bajorans who had slipped out of the shadows of the bar, ceremonial swords in hand.

In his discussion with Kira, it had been revealed that Kosst Amojan’s cult was still active to this day. Ceremonial killing and fights to the death were a hallmark of their faith. The two Bajorans had a vacant look in their eyes but didn't seem possessed, so that vacant look may have been the ceremonial drug use the Vedic had also mentioned.

“Ah here we go,” said Quark, but Sisko didn’t take his eyes off the two Bajorans, he recognized them as regular visitors to the station. No sign before today that they were cultists. “Today we are celebrating the first day of the Eternal Rule of the Lord of All Things, Kosst Amojan.”

Sisko felt the Prophet flare up within him as the first Bajoran advanced to attack, and Sisko felt the impact of the man’s sword on the bar as he dodged sideways, grabbing him and throwing him whirling to the ground. 

These Bajorans were no slouches. Clearly this man had built up his body for such battles, for he recovered quickly and made another attack, swinging his sword in an arc. Sisko ducked and came up with a sucker punch to the jaw, and came around in a roundhouse kick, felling the man, who landed, and didn’t get up again. Clearly these men had been the ones to behead the poor Ferengi waiters. Sisko kicked the man's sword away, but didn’t have time for words, the second Bajoran came at him and he threw the man over his shoulder, using the stairwell as a weapon to pin him before knocking the man out hard and landing him almost in identical repose next to the other. He kicked away the second sword.

“Well done…” said a soft voice, and Sisko looked up. "Well done...Emissary."

Quark’s eyes were no longer slate blue, and he was no longer nervously and fearfully smiling. Now those eyes were deep blood red and he was grinning with wicked greed, the evil grin of a devil who was ready for a feast.

“Kosst Amojan, I presume,” said Sisko, feeling the hesitance of the Prophet inside him in severe concern.

“You’ve got it,” the Pagh-Wraith cackled, and Quark’s normally hearty laugh was twisted into a cackle by the wraith, who was now practically dancing. “I welcome you to my temple, Emissary, you will make a fitting sacrifice to give my friends back home,” he pulled the tablecloth from the body of the Kai and Sisko felt his blood go cold.

There was no flesh left on the body of the Kai. The swarm had stripped her down to the bones. And the bees, gorged with blood and gore were like large swollen red bumblebees, and the Queen, a massive bloated balloon, floated up from the mass, and hovered in the air.

The hive rose with her and the Prophet in him gave a soft sigh of despair. There was no saving this twisted mass, these were no longer Bashir’s bees. These monsters were now glutted on flesh and blood, and they were now turning their hungry gazes towards him.

Sisko felt the Prophet surround him in a shell of energy as the hoard attacked, and thousands of bullet shots of pure angry energy impacted with the energy of the Prophet, the Kosst Amojan cackling and howling as Sisko shook with the effort of just staying on his feet. As the bees impacted with his shield, they bounced off dead, tiny burning asteroids, turning to ash. The Prophet was destroying the hive, and the pain of this decision was terrible weight. It meant that Bashir's Queen and the handful of bees in the lab were all that was left. Sisko could not see Odo beyond the energy sphere encircling him, he had to have been getting closer, just a little closer, and he could beam away with the Orb...just a little…

To everyone’s astonishment the doors to the bar suddenly opened and in ran Rammis Amarja, half naked and burning with white hot light. A fiery power was filling every inch of her.

“Now it's my turn, Kosst Amojan,” said the Prophet fiercely, eyes burning white with light. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” and she raised her hand and a bolt of white hot energy erupted from her fingers and slammed right into the chest of Quark.

At once Sisko felt a second mind was touching his own. Amarja’s gamble with Garak had worked, and not in a way she had expected. The former Pagh-Wraith was now ‘purified’ as had been promised, and the two Prophets, now reunited properly, joined their power together. Sisko raised a hand and a second beam of light hit Quark and the Ferengi screamed before flinging out a fireball of red energy in a desperate attempt to dislodge them. Sisko watched Amarja go down with a shriek of pain, but the new Prophet was not going to give up.

There was still one last person in the bar that the Prophet could inhabit, and the energy of the Prophet, leaving Amarja, passed the Wraith and the Orb and Sisko watched in astonishment as the startled constable Odo was consumed with white energy.

It was ironic that it was the shapeshifter that the Prophet had chosen. Odo, or the Prophet, had the perfect form in mind to take to take down Quark.

A bee. The massive shapeshifted form of a giant drone rose up from behind the Orb, a giant insect with a long stinger to launch himself at the screaming Quark and Sisko didn’t even have time to shout in protest before the stinger hit its mark, bringing down the howling Ferengi.

Kosst Amojan was not to be outdone. The last refuge for the wraith was the hive, and he took the Queen bee as his new host and rose to dive bomb straight at Sisko, a fiery red and hot burning fireball.

He was surprised when the Prophet left him, forming a sudden ball of energy and ejecting as projectile, colliding with Kosst Amojan, the Queen bee burning away into white hot ash.

For a moment the energy of Kosst Amojan and the Prophet mingled in the air, a flaming swirling ball of energy. And then the second Prophet joined the sphere and the three energy beings formed a perfect sphere of red and white, swirling and convulsing, fighting for dominance, and finally the ‘red’ of Kosst Amojan was ‘tossed’ fiercely, and pointedly, at the ceiling and the red ball flew up into the ceiling and vanished out of sight.

Somehow, though he didn't know how, he knew Kosst Amojan was on his way back to the Fire Caves where he belonged. Sisko immediately bent down next to Amarja to check her health. She was still breathing, thank goodness. He checked the two Bajorans next, who were no worse for the wear. Odo was bent over Quark, checking his life signs with a tricorder he had formed with his hand.

“He’s paralyzed, but alive,” said the Constable, sounding relieved. “Fortunately I convinced the Prophet not to strike any vital organs at the last second, but it was ready to kill.”

“I can’t blame it,” Sisko said, looking around the mess of the room.

The two Prophets, floating and hovering in the air above them, were seemingly waiting for something.

And then it hit him.

“Sisko to Dax, please beam the new Orb and its case to Quark’s. I think its time for the Prophets to go home again.”

In a sparkling light the delicate Orb in its fragile lattice appeared on the bar top next to its empty housing. The two swirling lights of the Prophets seemed almost cheerful at the arrival of the Orb, and for a moment they hovered in the air before moving towards it. Then one of them stopped and moved over to Sisko to touch him.

_‘Emissary, we are both very grateful. Tell my Student he has all that he needs to keep going...he does not need me anymore.’_

“I see,” Sisko considered. “But...I still don’t understand a lot about what happened here.”

_‘You know where to find us when you have questions…But the Doctor already knows many of the answers you seek.’_

Sisko was rather amused by this, wondering what the Doctor knew that he hadn’t yet told them, and watched as the two Prophets enveloped the Orb, and the jeweled structure rose loose from the frame and then moved away from it, and floated up to resettle into its empty case.

He took one last look around the empty bar and sighed. The rest of the team was now coming in from the second floor, but there were no more bees. With the Queen dead, everything now rested on Bashir’s pregnant Queen bee.

_Oh Julian...all this...over bees. I hope Bajor will have a brighter future from all of this...I really do._

Sisko couldn’t blame his Doctor. Kosst Amojan had instigated a lot of this, and he hoped the despicable creature was suffering now, whenever he was.

It would be a long time before the Emissary would be able to come to Quark’s without seeing the blank dead faces of the dead employees and bloody dabo chips.

* * *

Julian Bashir felt his breath being held inside a vice as he slipped into the holodeck, tense, fearful, anticipating the trouble that he had been fully warned was coming. He was fully dressed in his uniform, expecting anything else but what was waiting for him inside.

The Vulcan Sun Sands guest house foyer. Feeling almost as if his privacy had been breached at this choice of program, he made his way pointedly into the guest house and found a robe wrap and sandals, and a handwritten card pinned to the wall.

_Please Dress Casual._

Julian felt a small relief filling him as he changed, whatever was waiting for him couldn’t have been that bad if it was a casual dress affair, unless this was meant to soften the blow. He came out onto the warm heat of the sands feeling before he saw the people that were here, the soft sound of laughter and the soft conversations making him feel much better.

Sisko stood under the sun, looking out across the water, wrapped up just as Julian was, sun shields over his eyes. Julian hadn’t really needed them, but he had put them in his pocket just in case, and so he put them on now so he could look straight at the man. Sisko looked like he was in a good mood, and maybe he was, to be having the meeting here.

Worf and Dax, also in robes, were sitting on a blanket on the sand together, bent together and softly talking. Julian felt a brief feeling of guilt for Dax filling him, and reminded himself that she was fine now, just fine thanks. Her problems were manageable, she would be fine. Right?

Odo was still Odo, standing on the sand and looking like he didn’t understand why they were having a staff meeting in the holodeck. Though he had gotten into the spirit by dressing casually as well. Quark was pressing charges against Odo, but the charges were probably going to be dropped anyways, Quark would make a full recovery in time, and had been making a very big show of leaning on his support cane wherever he went, which he barely even needed anymore. Nobody would let him forget that he had agreed to host the Pagh-Wraith in his mind in the first place.

Chief O’Brien looked the most relaxed, lying on a blanket in his Vulcan robe, legs and arms stretched out and shields over his eyes and Julian wondered if the man was sleeping. He had helped Alnan and the rest of the crew load the bees onto the ship that took them all away to the research station, and had been the happiest of any of them to see them all gone. Moving on and moving onto the next problem was the norm for stable, sturdy Miles O’Brien.

Julian felt before he saw Doctor Girani, and this told him what the ‘bad news’ was that Sisko had warned him he would be telling him at this meeting. Girani was sitting with Kira on another blanket, the two Bajorans laughing together quietly.

Kira looked so much better now. Whatever damage he had done before was almost nonexistent. Her recovery was going well, she would be able to return to duty any day now.

He knew by Girani’s presence he wouldn’t be.

“Julian,” Sisko said, still smiling, and pointed to the last, empty blanket. “Sit, join us.”

Julian sat on the blanket and realized the four blankets were in a circle, for Sisko sat down on the blanket with him and Odo moved over to crouch next to O’Brien’s blanket rather than trying to share his space.

“I hope you guys don’t mind the casual setting I chose,” Sisko said quietly. “I thought we all needed a brief break after the last two days of stress…and the Doctor’s program is rather nice.”

“It’s beautiful, Julian,” said Dax softly. “Garak should have been asking you to marry him.”

Soft laughter followed, and Julian winced mentally. Garak had been avoiding him for the last two days, not being able to look him in the eye. He couldn’t blame him.

All Julian could feel was guilt. Guilt that Rammis Amarja was now pregant and on her way to Cardassia to answer whatever crazy questions were asked of her by Dukat and his people. Guilt that Garak had been forced into that position in the first place. Everything that everyone had gone through…

“Don’t do that,” said Kira suddenly. “Stop it, I can see you blaming yourself internally...stop.”

“I can’t help it,” said Julian, putting his hand on his face. “I can’t help feeling as if a lot of this trouble wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t felt so overconfident about my abilities.”

“And you do have a responsibility now,” said Sisko. “To continue your work and finish what you started. Which is why I’ve called this meeting. Starfleet says Alnan and the new bees are settling in well at the research center, but there are a lot of things the researchers don’t understand about the way the bees were created. Julian, I said you would be able to help them. You’ll be leaving right away.”

He had to have expected that. But he felt his face burning as he turned to look away from them. He felt Dax’s hand reach out to touch his shoulder.

“I understand...it's a lot of responsibility, creating a new life form,” Julian looked around at them, all their concerned and expectant eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to adequately explain everything to their satisfaction, but if those bees are going to help Bajor, I’ll have to try.”

“Starfleet won’t let the bees return until they are certain there won’t be any danger from them,” Sisko looked over at Kira, who looked like she wanted to protest that fact, then back at Julian. “This isn’t a punishment Julian, they really do need your help. And the Prophet seemed certain that you still have everything you needed to finish your project. Is that right?”

Julian sat back on his heels, and considered. He considered what the Prophet had shown him. How to manipulate matter with his mind, how to form it, how to condense it, how to show it to take _that_ particular genetic structure and _this_ particular cellular shape. He wasn’t sure how he would do that without the Prophet inside him giving him those powers. He was a human being.

“I’ll give it a try, I hope I can recreate what I did before without the Prophet helping me…”

“I think you will succeed,” said Worf. “You will have an entire laboratory full of experts wanting to learn from you and share their experience.”

Ah. Julian looked up at Sisko who was giving him a serious look. They were all still deceived that everything he had been doing had taken place in test tubes in the lab. Everyone perhaps except Kira, who was looking at him hopeful and concerned, and perhaps Odo, who was giving him a carefully considered look. Dax, for her part, was smiling with delight.

“You’ll be fine, this should be easy for you,” she winked, reminding them of their long shared joke about his genetic engineering being the monkey wrench that fixes every problem.

“I think I’ll have a lot to learn from them,” Julian admitted. “The whole realm of genetic engineering isn’t one I studied in school, if you can believe it. In fact I avoided the whole thing. My experience comes almost entirely from dealing with the Teplan Blight.”

“Well I can understand that,” said Dax. “You never were happy about your genetic engineering.”

“Genetic engineering is not that different from any other form of medicine, to be honest,” Julian said, couching his words simply for everyone to understand. “You are basically telling the body, with chemicals, what you want it to do, and it does it. In the case of genetic engineering, the changes are permanent.”

“Tell that to Starfleet,” said Kira, and they all shared a good laugh at this.

“Well now,” said Girani at last, standing to her feet. “I’ll be happy to take care of the Infirmary for you, Doctor Bashir, but you will come back,” she insisted. “With the bees. Bajor is counting on you.”

“Definitely,” Kira got to her feet too and this seemed to be the cue for all of them to rise. 

Julian looked around at his crew, his friends, his Captain, and felt the renewed energy and support filling him. This wasn’t a goodbye, this was a reminder that they still loved him and wanted him to come home.

He would not let them down.

* * *

“May I join you?”

Julian Bashir looked up in alarm. He had been walking with his satchel to the shuttle port where the Federation civilian transport was waiting to take him to his new assignment, and there, waiting for him, was Garak, with his own satchel over his shoulder.

“Garak?”

The tailor was now looking him in the eyes, the warmth was there, and no trace of the previous embarrassment.

“I had been thinking,” said Garak, as they joined the line forming for the shuttle together. “That it has been a while since I’ve been off this station. And I had been thinking that a Federation research center dedicated to researching Bajoran species might be a safe place for me to take a break.”

“Its a research center Garak,” said Julian, slightly amused. “I’m not sure what else there’ll be for you to do there.”

“Well, its a research center in orbit around a planet. In fact, I do believe it is the eight planet in the Vulcan planetary system. Not a far shuttle away from Vulcan itself. It provides a possibility for a visit to Vulcan…”

“Well,” Bashir felt his hope as a warm ball that filled his chest, and the tailor let him board first, letting the ensign scan him for weapons and the like before moving onto the other side of rolling gear airlock. “I can see how it might be a nice place for a Cardassian to vacation.”

“Indeed,” said Garak matter of factly, joining him on the other side of the gear, standing next to him primly. “I should dare say that it would make a nice place to travel to with a nice companion for a weekend…?”

“Garak,” Bashir felt the softness of the last comment filling him with its warmth, its quality of hope. “If they give me even a single minute, I’ll happily visit Vulcan with you.”

Garak’s eyes were intense now, icy blue, but so warm and wonderful that Bashir could have sat staring into them forever if they hadn’t been holding up the line.

“I am certain you will find the time,” said the tailor, once they both moved into position to enter the shuttle. “I will happily be patient until then. You have been so very patient with me…”

Julian felt both joy and relief, and the two men entered the shuttle together. This was the first step of hopefully what would be the rest of their lives.

* * *

Constable Odo found his way to the second level with a soft sigh, meeting with his detective, Seelee, who was grinning properly, so it couldn’t have been a serious matter of concern this time.

“She’s all right, she’s on the right side of the railing, she just hasn’t moved in a long time…I think she’s just having one of her long memory things…”

Odo looked out across the catwalk where Seelee indicated. Dax was standing alone, looking out over the promenade, and Odo walked over to her, confident that Dax was clearly just doing her ‘memory’ thing, where she momentarily forgot which of her hosts the Dax symbiont was inhabiting.

It was a side effect of her recovery that they were all still getting used to. Bashir had been the most upset about it. He would be happier away from the station for a while as Dax got used to this new symptom and learned to manage it. Away from the constant reminder of what his ambition had done to her.

Odo wasn’t convinced by Kira’s arguments that the Pagh-Wraith was to blame for everything. Julian Bashir was a good man, but he did have some serious overconfidence issues about everything he did and this whole incident was a strong reminder to him about their genetically engineered friend’s tendency to forget that after all, he was only human.

“Dax,” said Odo softly. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, softly. “I was just thinking about Julian. How my symbiont doesn't always join properly anymore.”

“Yes,” said Odo, looking over the railing with her, knowing this would be a sadness for her for a very long time. “The antivenom to counter the bees, whatever was in the venom had to have been severe.”

“I want to know what he put into the antivenom,” Dax said, hands gripping the railing. “I am no longer allergic to the bees.”

“Indeed,” said Odo pointedly, but he sensed she had a really really important point she was trying to convey, and was having trouble to convey it.

Finally she found the words.

“I am no longer allergic to any insect bites of any kind.”

Odo thought about that for a moment. And realized just what she meant just as she seemed to remember which host she was for she laughed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment.

“I’m sorry Odo, I’m late for lunch with Kira. Do you want to join us?”

Odo looked at her, severe concern filing him for her well being, but he nodded and followed her.

Yes, Odo would be keeping an eye on their genetically engineered friend upon his return. No matter how good a man was, humans were easily tempted, prone to the vices and sins of the flesh. And Julian Bashir’s greatest sin was his vanity and pride.

Who knew what else he would have done before the Prophet had left him. Perhaps it was a good thing he had simply stuck with the bees. What other problems would the man have been fully confident he would be able to solve, all by himself?

Without the Prophet he was just a mortal man.

Hopefully Julian Bashir would come home to them, maybe secretly married to Garak, and hopefully with dozens of hives of Starfleet approved bees for Bajor’s agricultural relief efforts in the cargo hold. Odo knew Kira would look forward to that.

Odo certainly would.

* * *

Garak took a deep breath, and looked over at his companion. Julian was sitting at his desk still, and he was feeling almost completely ignored.

Bee samples. Dead bees in test tubes that Julian had brought home for study. His new presumptive fiance was a workhorse and Garak had yet to bring his would-be husband to Vulcan yet to ask him the question.

So far everything had been good. Garak had gotten over his fear of intimacy, after all, if he could just throw himself back into bed with Rammis then he should have been more than happy to have the partner of his own choosing with him. That had not been a problem.

But his partner was distant. Lost in his work. A million miles away, as humans described it. If he had known he would be sharing quarters with a man that almost never slept he would have requisitioned his own.

“Julian, come to bed,” he said, moving over to the desk.

Julian was turning a small test tube over and over again in his hand under the light, the dead bee inside unchanging, and boring. His desk was bare of anything else but a handful of these tubes, all with dead bees, that the Doctor had been studying practically all night, occasionally consulting his PADD. This one was one of the ones from the new hive, Garak was certain of it, the researchers here hadn’t let Julian anywhere near the basic bees Bajor had sent them.

“In a moment darling,” Julian said. “In a moment, one last try…”

Garak sighed, and looked up around the room. It was bare mostly, neither of them were a big fan of excessive knick-knacks. Julian left his clothes on the floor sometimes, but mostly he was tidy. Both of them were a bit cramped in this tiny overly bright Federation space station, having been assigned the least luxurious quarters the station crew could get away with sticking them both with. Bashir was an important consultant to the researchers here, but he wasn’t liked, Garak was resented clearly, but Julian specifically for his genetic enhancements, and more pointedly because of the mutant bees. Garak put a hand on Julian’s shoulder, and he looked up, and held up the tube.

“Garak, isn’t it incredible?”

Garak sighed and looked at the tube.

A fully living, breathing, moving honey bee was looking back at him.

“Life is so surprising,” said Julian Bashir impishly.

Garak most certainly had to agree with that. He absolutely had to agree.

And so did the bee, which carefully cleaned its antenna and fluttered its wings as if it had never been dead at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wouldn't be a true horror story without a twist ending. A very very belated Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoy this story, and if you liked it, maybe I'll write things with a more horror/spooky bent in the future. Mwahahaha.


End file.
